Night Thoughts

Totally Worth it.

If I ever go to jail, I hope it's for something like this.

Dreaming By the Book

Had a dream last night that I went to New York and tracked down the lit. agent who's got my 50 pages. I was given a letter saying how great she thought it was, and oh-so-sorry to take so long, and a request for the entire manuscript.

I then shared a taxi back to my hotel with Ellen Datlow and Sheila Williams.

Yea. There's a lot on my mind. The day all my dominos line up is gonna be amazing.

Honeymoon's Over

Bear with me, everybody.

It's gonna be a long 6 months.

The thing I always forget about this job is that the reason we can all sit around and screw off for 6 months is because for the other 6 months, we're working 24/7.

Blaine's a frickin' sweetheart, and he must have talked me up like I was fuckin' Jesus Christ, because I realize I've just been handed a career along with my corporate card. I'll be supervising document controls for all the new projects coming down the pipeline, which means training and overseeing the support staff in each location and making sure they're delivering and tracking the right information.

I didn't take in the full scope of what this really meant until we had our meeting in the warroom, and I realized I was the youngest person at a table full of men, and my name was up there on the "top" part of the top-down org chart, along with theirs.

What the fuck just happened?

Oh, shit, I got handed a career. Which I could still very well fuck up.

And, worse: which I don't really want.

It's funny, you get your shiny shoes and your suit jacket, and you get told to make plane reservations to camp out in Denver, and it's like, isn't this it? This s the top? This is corporate America. This is why you go to college, to get a good job like this with great health care and a 401(K).

And if I stay here too long, I'm gonna get my soul sucked out.

Don't think I don't know that.

I just want to write books. Fuck. Just pay me for *that*, OK?

So updates and rants here are going to be a lot more sporadic.

The Big Boys are going out to negotiate the NYC project next week, which everyone agrees is going to be long and messy. Prepare for rants from the warroom in NYC.

I've also come to the conclusion that I won't move to Denver. I talked with Yellow about it (they asked him to move out there), and I basically have the same reservations he does: I'm not in love with Denver, the corp. office is waaaaay too corporate (seeing Yellow spiff up for a real corp office was amusing), and honestly, Chicago is just way better than Denver. There's just no contest.

I either love a place, or I'm indifferent about it, and I don't know that I'd have any interest in living somewhere that's halfway between the West and the Midwest.

It feels like going backwards.

The News From Denver

Quotes of the day:

Reddy, the construction lead, on our participation in the NYC project:

“When I got hired here, I told them there were two places I never wanted to be assigned to: Iraq, and New York City.”

From Yellow, when he heard that I’d be heading up document controls for his new project in addition to the three or four others we discussed that day:

“Kameron, how many of you are there?”

My response: “I’m starting to wonder that, too.”

Denver is cold (about 2 degrees. A lot like Fairbanks in March, actually), with what I consider to be less than a mile of visibility, though the pilot insisted there’s 3. The roads are shit. I passed three car accidents, two ambulances, and a fire truck on the way out here. It’s a mixture of snow and crappy visibility – and the rich kids on vacation who have stopped their cars on the side of the roads and are whining to their parents on their cell phones.

I’m from a really, really small branch office of this company. We run a tight ship. We reuse paper and have to make lengthy petitions for office supplies. Our HR manager and the lead architect make sure of that. At most, we have 18 people working there, but nobody’s in all at once, and haven’t been for about six months. It’s relaxed, laid back, and they’ve been known to put the speakerphone on mute when corp. starts bitching during conference calls, so they can bitch back.

It’s a bit like working for a mom n’ pop operation. Only, more conference calls.

I expected that in Denver I’d walk up to the corporate office and find that it maybe took up a couple floors of a high rise. Maybe a whole building.

When I arrived, I found I’d been dropped off at the wrong building.

Oh, yes, this was XX Company, but the wrong building belonging to XX company.

Corporate Denver consists of three buildings.

They’ve got every single division of the company headed out of here, not just wireless.

They’ve got charts up on the wall for Iraq projects.

It’s like I sold my soul and woke up working for Halliburton.

Locked Up

It should be illegal to get up before 5am.

Not sure how long they'll keep me locked up today, but my hotel has wireless.

See you all tonight.

Go drink some coffee for me.

I transferred all my writing files to my company laptop.

Ha ha

Stepping Out

My whole body hurts.

I tried on my suit jacket in preparation for the Denver trip. I haven't touched it in months. When I pulled it on, I was surprised to find that it seemed to have a tighter fit than I remembered, which was physically impossible, I thought, because I've dropped two sizes in the last year.

It zipped up fine.

The problem was the shoulders.

Of course. Spend two or three days a week beating the shit out of something, and work with 30lb free weights five mornings a week, and you get broad in the shoulders. I was already broad in the shoulders.

Such irony. I've spent my whole life wishing I was smaller, and here I am, getting bigger, taking up more space.

I've been issued a company laptop, a corporate card. Rumor has it I'll be traveling to Dallas, New York, maybe Fresno this year. I'll be talking with my new boss about what they can offer me in Denver.

I'll be 25 next week.

I went jogging tonight. I'm not sure why, because I was prepared to pack all my jogging clothes for Denver (my hotel has a gym), but I was full of this nervous energy that I couldn't get rid of, so I pulled on my Hurley hoodie (I was so gleeful to find that "Hurley" was an actual clothing brand) and hit the pavement.

By the time I got to the park, the wind was up, coming in from over the lake, and it was snowing.

I picked a sport I like - boxing - that requires the one exercise I have hated the whole of my entire life with a blazing passion - jogging - in order to be in any way effective.

I hate jogging. I have always hated it. I can't say why. Maybe memories of those truly awful fitness days in PE when you all got clocked on doing your mile, and I always seemed to be lagging behind back there with the other fat kids. Mostly, I think, I didn't like the idea of running much because, well, I gained about 30lbs during puberty, and all of the sudden there was a lot more extra flesh to jiggle around and attract attention, and I hated drawing attention, because I never looked on any of it as good.

So for whatever reason, I hate jogging, but here I am, knowing I have to be up by 3:30am to catch my flight, knowing I should be sleeping, but too edgy to sit still.

I've learned to pace myself, which took awhile to figure out. Now, whenever I start moving too fast, I remind myself that it's better to feel like I'm trotting out the duration than to have to stop because I'm gasping. The breathing thing took forever to figure out, too. All from the diaphram. If you lose the breathing part, you're finished, and that's what I'm paying attention to the whole time, that and my music.

I'm just about to reach the place where I usually stop for my hundred-yard walk (usually my halfway and turn-around point), but there's a good song on (Snow Patrol: Run), and I keep going, and you know, just past where I usually stop, the path is way better lighted, and you know, there's some bike riders out here tonight, hey is that another female jogger? Hell, I'll keep going.

Past the skating park, cool, why aren't I tired? Another good song (Velvet Underground: These Days), put it on repeat, keep going.

I'm not sure why I'm not tired. It's like I've given my brain leave to gnaw on all the bullshit I've been tossing and turning about in bed, and it's taking the opportunity to hash it out while I run.

I'm worried about this job, worried about sticking with it, because I'm so damn terrified of sticking with anything for more than two years (yea, about the time it took for my last actual relastionship to go from blandly sour to freakshow. I'll be the first to bang that one on the head).

But what did I always want? A job where I got opportunities to travel, that gave me time to write (if I only work 6-9 months a year when projects are going, guess what I'm doing the rest of the time?), a job that paid off my student loans, because until I get out from under the burden of all this debt, I'm going to feel leashed.

I can see the tennis courts now, and I've mapped this route before. To the tennis courts and back is over 4 miles.

The snow's coming down thick now. My fingers are numb.

Train: Ordinary (repeat)

I jog past the tennis courts, take my 100 yard half-way point walk, turn around, and head back.

I'm facing more into the wind now, and the snow's like sleet against my face.

This is stupid. Why am I doing this?

I'm tired, but I can't stop now because to stop and walk means to frickin' freeze my ass off.

I just don't want to do this. I hate this. Skip, go back to Snow Patrol (repeat). Keep going.

The last mile and a half is a blistering bitch.

I tell myself I'll let myself walk at least under the tunnel. Just a breather, just a...

And I headed into the tunnel, and I realized there was no one waiting on the other side of it.

I told a buddy of mine once that I always felt like I was running away from something, and he said, "Are you sure you weren't running *toward* something?"

Maybe I am, maybe I'm not, but tonight, the only person behind me was me, the only person ahead of me was me.

I was running away from somebody I was, and running toward somebody I wanted to be.

I had this litany running through my head, "You've got three degrees. You've trekked 160 km into rural Africa. You've written eight books (no, they aren't very good, but I fucking finished them). You can run four miles. This is the last of your shit that you need to get together. Fit and strong. That's it. You'll be there."

I've been looking for somebody to fight my whole life, when the only person I've got to fight is myself.

But it's like once you start running, you can't stop.

For better or worse, I'm stuck with myself.

May as well be a better self.

But goddamn, it's a bitch to get there.

What I Got For Christmas

...from my buddy Stephanie was a notebook with this on the cover:



The best part about knowing somebody for over a decade is that they totally have you pegged. She apparently picked it up months ago, it seemed so appropriate.

I'm so easy.

Why Are You Here Reading This Instead of Trolling CNN?

Steve Gillard's got some cool thoughts up about the history of media, the reasons behind the collapse of the dot.coms, and the growing attraction of blogs.

My short answer: I like having a bigger sandbox, where the sand stretches into the sea.

The Blue Place

If, like me, you have a lot of trouble finding books with kick-ass female protagonists, I'm currently re-reading Nicola Griffith's crime thriller The Blue Place, and damn, I'd almost forgotten how good it is. If you don't mind that about two thirds of the way through, there's a short Norway travelogue, you'll love it.

How's this for an opening:

"An April night in Atlanta between thunderstoms: dark and warm and wet, sidewalks shiny with rain and slick with torn leaves and fallen azalea blossoms. Nearly midnight. I had been walking for over an hour, covering four or five miles. I wasn't tired. I wasn't sleepy.

You would think that my bad dreams would be of the first man I had killed, thirteen years ago. Or if not him, then maybe the teenager who had burned to death in front of me because I was to slow to get the man with the match. But no, when I turn out the lights at ten o'clock and can't keep still, can't even bear to sit down in my Lake Claire house, it's because I see again the first body I hadn't killed."

And you might learn a few things, too:

"It's the simplest thing. If you walk tight around a corner, you can be surprised by anyone who is waiting on the other side. It's like sitting with your back to the door, like chambering a round and leaving the safety off, wearing a dress that will restrict your legs, or walking with your hands in your pockets: stupid. But so many people do it. Every now and again I go into a school to teach self-defence classes to young women. I ask: How many of you know which way to look before crossing a busy street? and every single hand will go up. So then I ask: Who knows the fire drill? And most of the hands stay up. Even if I ask who knows CPR, or what to do if you smell gas, there are a lot of hands. But if I ask how many know how to walk around a corner properly - or escape a stranglehold, or find out if the man behind you really is following you - they lower their hands in confusion. Yet these are all sensible precautions. It's just that women are taught not to think about the danger they are often in, or how to prevent it. We're taught to feel fear, but not what to do about it."

Great stuff, there. Particularly that last line.

Busy Morning

Lots going on this morning, I'll have more later. Looks like we're going to sign for something in New York. I've never been to New York. Might be cool.

Off to Denver tomorrow, etc.

I'll have lots to say about this later. My first thought was to wonder if this was the same guy who was terrorizing my neighborhood a few months ago. He may have just switched beats. That's what ya get, fucker.

Just One of Those Days

Yea, it's just one of those days.

I'm going to go home, go to bed, and start all over again tomorrow.

Fuck the Fucking Fuckers

Blogger ate my goddamn post.

Die Blogger! Die!

I think this was blogger's way of saying, "Kameron, you're done for the day. Really. Relax. Take a chill pill. You don't have to be pissed at everyone today."

To which I reply: ARGGGGGGHH, you Fucker!

Episode 15: In Which I Try to Figure Out What the Hell it is I Do Here

The problem with having a new boss who's out of Denver and has about a zillion things he's responsible for is that I get no feedback whatsoever.

Now, really, this is nothing new for me. For the first three weeks I worked here, I didn't even know what the hell it was we did.

In fact, I have a feeling Blaine didn't know what the hell I was supposed to do either, and he was my boss. So, we were even.

As I've said before, Blaine is like a big puppydog. He's a big former football player, with a football player's distrust of his own intellect, a sweetheart, but sort of all over the place. He says thank you all the time, watches where he puts his hands, and has gone out of his way on numerous occasions to praise what I do. Even when he's busy, I'll at least get a, "Yes. This is good" or "This is good, but can you change this?"

In fact, he just called me into his office to read a line from an e-mail he couldn't understand to see if it was, and I quote, "Smart person lingo that you'd know" or "industry lingo."

I told him I didn't know it, so it must be industry lingo.

I feel so appreciated for being a geek.

And from Piper I'm getting zero reaction. I sent him oodles of crap I'd been compiling that I'll be using to, you know, do document controls work. The only reponse, "Can you make one of these up for X project too?"

Uh. Sure.

Today it's: "Make this look more professional, send it back to me."

Sure. I do so, he says, "Actually, that was the wrong thing I sent you, here's the right one."

OK. I do that one.

Radio silence.

Now it's "Convert this other document, we'll do this thing later. I'll call you tomorrow."

Right-o.

No "Thanks," no "This is great," or even "This frickin' sucks, you should go back to cleaning dog kennels."

In the grand scheme of things, of course, the formatting of documents for kick-off meetings shouldn't matter, but I've worked a year now with Ned the regional VP occasionally leaning over my shoulder, and that guy's a frickin' perfectionist. I reprinted Thank-You cards four times because he found crap he didn't like in them (thank god he wasn't around when I was doing audit packages).

I wonder how much of this has to do with the fact that 1) Blaine is younger than Piper by well over a decade 2) Blaine actually shares the same office with me, whereas Piper's only met me once.

I think there's a generational difference in management styles going on.

That, or I've just gotten very, very cozy with all this overpraise, and I'm about to take a nosedive into Corporate Hell.

Getting a raise really sucks.

I just want to write books.

Damn, I'm Sore

Did 3.5 miles yesterday, which I didn't think would be a lot until I actually did it. When you're used to jogging 2.6 or 2.7 miles, jumping to 3.5 is a fucking bitch.

I just didn't realize how much until I stood up just now.

Damn. I've got kickboxing tonight, too.

It's Because Only Stupid Women Get Married, Obviously.

LONDON (AFP) - A high IQ is a hindrance for women wanting to get married while it is an asset for men, according to a study by four British universities published in The Sunday Times newspaper.

...for girls, there is a 40-percent drop [in marriage] for each 16-point rise [in IQ], according to the survey by the universities of Aberdeen, Bristol, Edinburgh and Glasgow.

Smart women are just too smart to get married. They cohabitate and fuck around like any good, normal, sane person. Obviously.

"A chap with a high IQ is going to get a demanding job that is going to take up a lot of his energy and time. In many ways he wants a woman who is an old-fashioned wife and looks after the home, a copy of his mum in a way."

Then let him go fuck his mother.

Midnight Cowboy

I watched Midnight Cowboy last night, and for some reason, I've had this insatiable desire for Dentyne gum all day...

Sisterly Love

Somebody else has purportedly got Lynne Cheney's lesbian romance up.

I sure wish my last name was Cheney. The opening paragraph to a book I wrote when I was fourteen sounded just like this:

"On every side, there was emptiness. On every side, the prairie stretched on and on, unbroken to the horizon. Even the dome of sky was a naked stretch, swept bare of clouds by the unceasing wind. In all its vast blueness, the only interruption was the inescapable sun. She felt its heat. She saw the shadow it made, her shadow, a startling darkness in the bright and infinite loneliness."

Looks like it's a real deep, penetrating read.

Yum.

Welcome to Chicago

It's quarter to seven. I'm heading to the train station, splashing through dark puddles on the pavement. The sky's that purple-black color that city skies get just before dawn. At this time of the morning, the smell of fried Thai food from the restaurants lining the street is more stink than smell, and my stomach heaves at the idea of consuming anything non-liquid at this time of the morning.

I'm listening to a Live cd, and thinking that you know, Live sounds pretty good until you actually listen to the lyrics, and then you start listening and you realize the lyrics are shit. Luckily, I'm in no state to actually listen to what the hell anybody's saying this morning.

I arrive at the top of the train platform just in time to see the ass-end of a train heading toward the loop.

Wait around for the next one, dreary day, rain, Chicago, the sound of garbage trucks. A northbound train clatters by. Somebody's smoking and eating a McDonald's breakfast sandwich. Heave.

Maybe I'm getting sick with something.

On the train, the only empty seat is full of gnawed chicken bones. I wait until a woman moves herself, her stroller, and her 3-year-old to a vacated seat, and then I take theirs, hoping they aren't moving because the kid pissed on the seat.

I doze and watch the rain on the windowpanes. Past Wrigley Field (Addison - amazing when the Cubs were in the playoffs, it was like Disneyland), past Boys' Town (Belmont - there's an army surplus store there I keep meaning to get to), past De Paul University (Fullerton - maybe I should go to law school?).

We pass underground, and at Washington I prepare to alight from the wrong side of the train - that's how out of it I am. When the doors open on the other side, I do an about-face and stumble onto the platform, heading toward the blue line tunnel. I follow after the same little old woman almost every morning. She usually wears a lime green coat, but today it's gray featherdown.

At the blue line platform, familiar faces, but no violin player, no man crooning alongside bad tape recordings of cheesy songs. The street performers appear to have taken the day off.

Step onto the blue line, sharing the train with people and luggage, bound for O'Hare. I get off before O'Hare, trundle up the escalators with a bazillion other commuters, click, click of high heels and good men's shoes.

Twelve minute walk, past the mini-skyscrapers of this cozy little office complex (look, mom, I have a real job!), under the parking garage, follow the sidewalk, cross at the blinking light, there across the street I can see Cyllia the secretary's van already parked out front. Another day, another dollar.

Push inside, turn off the Live album, Blaine's office light is on, Blaine's in early... Cyllia's greeting, "Happy new year," dump my crap in my cubicle behind Cyllia, fish out my chicken and broccoli, stow it in the breakroom. Nobody else is in this early, we're all a bunch of slackers...

Blaine is on a conference call or something, Cyllia's listening to some funny ditty somebody forwarded to her.

I take my seat, CD collection at my left elbow, open up the computer, change the password (my old one: "Tragic!"), check my g-mail, nothing, check my work e-mail, nothing but "read by" receipts (if I "work" the work comes in by e-mail, unless Blaine tells me to print something, which has been my default position for the last six months - printer of Blaine's RFPs), blow me, blogging time, get some coffee, sitemeter, hotmail, random bullshit.

Another day, another dollar.

The printer next to me jams. Cyllia comes over, and one of the lead architects appears to retrieve his jammed document, tells me I should have told him I needed a car - he just sold "a real chick magnet" (there's a running bet in the office on the nature of my sexuality, as I never talk about a boyfriend. I've preferred to remain ambiguous. Who I take to bed or don't isn't their business. Their bafflement amuses me).

The accountant who took off so suddenly and was summarily fired is back, and chatting with the lead architect. She's apparently so good with Oracle that she can flake out, fly out, and abandon her key card and her job for three months and then burst back in without a salary penalty.

Must be great to be her.

Blaine bumbles in for said dictionary, discusses how he and his fiance suffered from stomach flu over New Year's.

Way to ring it in.

Cyllia comes by, whispers the usual lament against the injustices of the HR manager.

There are no messages on my phone. I could be in bed right now.

I can't believe I get paid for this shit.

Whose Book Would You Rather Read?

Sad, sad.

On the upside, I find something gleeful in the juxtaposition. I don't know what, but it's there. A symptom of sleep deprevation, no doubt.