Crush

I have a crush on a co-worker.  I say "crush" because it sounds more gentlemanly than wanting to bang the shit out of someone in the bathroom.  Either way.

I'm fairly sure she had a crush on me at one point - with or without the secondary meaning.  I think this because she got drunk at an event a couple of months ago and tried to kiss me.  It was the culmination of everything I've ever worked for in my life but the act took me by surprise and so I wound up dodging her head and then exclaiming "Wow you're drunk!" I still haven't quite forgiven myself for this, especially not on days she wears this ridiculous white dress that's kind of, maybe see-through a little.

Anyway, now she avoids me and I stare desperately at her ass whenever I have the chance.  That is the sum of our relationship all because I fucked up the last chance I'll ever have to sleep with a woman other than my wife.  It's going to be just me and my wife, again and again, until we die.  Unless I hire a hooker.

Interviews

Sometimes I like to send out my resume, book an interview, and then call and cancel it.  It gives me a sense of control.

My Career Aspirations

It's not really what I think of as a party, but I guess I was at a party yesterday.  At some point, "party" stopped being code for the purposeful overconsumption of alcohol, followed by mutual groping or good-natured vomiting.  Now it's a small gathering of upright adults, with everyone trying not to seem drunk while drinking.  Everyone has internalized this new definition except me.  Subconsciously, I'm always anticipating a night of nauseous debauchery which explains my inevitable disappointment once I arrive to parties nowadays.  People mostly talk.

So last night I was at a "party".  In the middle of polite conversation with some lonely looking people, one woman asked what I did.  I told her.  I was feeling reckless, so I added, "And I hate it."

I thought this would get a laugh or at least a sympathetic smile, but it appeared I had severely misjudged my crowd.  There was only a strained silence.

"I hate my job," I repeated, causing my wife to blink at my rapidly.  I make her nervous sometimes, with my sudden honesties.  "I'm looking for a new one."

I smiled politely at the frozen people.

"Well, what are you thinking the next step is?" a man named George finally inquired.

"Sending out my resume." I was annoyed by the obviousness of this.

"No no - I mean, what are you looking to do?"

"Oh you know - " I waved my hand dismissively.  "I figure I'll take the job that offers me the most money."

George nodded in a concerned sort of way.  "That's it?"

"Yes," I said, though I supposed as a middle-aged man there ought to be more on my agenda, like saving the whales or acquiring a particular job title.  But there wasn't, so I confirmed, "That's it."

Later my wife told me she had never met someone else who could appear gauche, insecure and arrogant all at the same time.  I thought of reminding her of a certain incident at her bachelorette party - I was fairly certain bargaining down a stripper who didn't care to show his balls was both gauche, insecure and arrogant but in the end, I wasn't sure.  Besides, I've been married long enough to let some things go.

Mid-Life Crisis

The day I turned nine years old, I realized that I was almost ten, but had done nothing with my life.  My youth had been wasted, I was sure.  I felt a sort of emptiness and despair as I opened my presents.  What did I have to show for my elementary school years?  It was an early mid-life crisis that continued fairly unbroken for the next thirty years.

Generally, it's helpful to have had so much practice with mid-life crises.  I'll think my life is over and it's all meaningless, life is just a series of days you spend behaving and then at the end of it all you go, "Fuck," but then I'll remember - I've been feeling this way since I was nine.  How serious can this feeling be?  I've been dealing with this shit my entire life, it's just a fucking feeling.

But then sometimes I'll veer into a more pessismistic reading and think, holy shit, I've been feeling this way since I was nine.  I'm going to waste my entire life, thinking that I'm wasting my life.  What the fuck am I doing?  It's very meta. 

So when that happens, I pick up smoking again.  I tried to explain all this to the wife when she caught me hiding behind the shed in our yard with a Camel Light, but she seemed to not see the connection.

The Wife's Diet

The wife is always dieting.  Well really she's always talking about how she's dieting, refusing to come with me to get bagels and then getting drunk at 5pm and eating all the bread in the house.  I suppose that counts.

But instead of making her feel better, giving her some sort of sense of control - or release with the bread? - she just whines on daily about how fat she is, how much cellulite she has.  I mean first of all I didn't even know what the fuck cellulite was until she told me about.   It's not like I'm sitting around looking up pictures of cellulite on people - something my wife does by the way, for unfathomable reasons.  And now that I know more about cellulite than I ever thought possible, I still don't get the big deal.  Meanwhile my wife was born with an innate knowledge of what cellulite is and also the belief that it is shameful.

When she's been looking at pictures of celebrities in bikinis, or God forbid US Weekly has come out with its beach bodies edition, the wife will refuse to have sex for at least a week.  She won't even want to be touched, instead preferring to run the streets like a homeless animal for as long as her body can physically stand it.  Then she'll come home to stand in front of the mirror, dripping sweat and squinting at her thighs.

As a bystander in the Great Cellulite Battle, I understand that there are two things which I am never to say out loud.  One is that my wife may have been a fun crazy drunk in her twenties, but she was never a beauty. Fine looking sure, but she really wasn't all that much to look at, plus she dressed like a homeless person most of the time.  Where is this vanity coming from?  Who the fuck cares about her thigh dimples?  I keep this confusion to myself.

The other thing I never say is that the running and the dieting don't affect her cellulite, not even a little.

Sick Days

I have come to expect that any assistant of mine will take sick days when he's feeling perfectly well.  Assistants are loathe to use vacation days, God knows why.  They're like squirrels saving nuts.  So instead of coming to me the day or week before and politely asking if they can use one of their two thousand vacation days, they sit on their hands until the day in question and call in "sick".  Usually on a Friday.

But it's fine.  I am a man of realistic - some would even say limited - expectations.  All I ask is that a person inform me of their "sickness" by 9:00am and cough a little when they're back in the office to maintain the charade.

At first I thought you understood these implicit rules.  You played by them so well.  You called in sick - on a Friday of course. You whispered convincingly, as though the pain of your illness was almost too much to speak through.  I liked that touch, and told you to feel better.

But then Monday, I heard one of the girls in the cube farm sneeze.  And then cough.  And then sneeze again.  Frankly, it was irritating, because can't any of you take a sick day when you're actually sick?  I went over to tell her to leave for the day.

"But it's just allergies," she told me.  "I get really bad allergies, but I haven't been sick in a really long time."

"Me neither," you chimed in, poking your head over the cube wall.  "I never get sick."

I stared at you.

"It's true," you assured me.  "I never get sick, I can't remember the last time I was sick."

It was a gaffe of enormous proportions, made worse by the fact that you stood there grinning at me, expecting some sort of praise or show of astonishment at your indefatigable health.  Had you forgotten you had called out sick?  What mechanisms were working in your brain?

It was too much to sift through, so I turned, went back to my office and shut the door, leaving you looking hurt at my refusal to acknowledge your incredible immune system.

Drinking with Colleagues

There's something about waking up hungover and finding that five of your colleagues have friended you on Facebook.  It feels good but also bad, and then you vomit.

Going for drinks with the office used to mean letting loose a little, letting your hair down, maybe making out with the hot chick you're always seeing by the copier.  Now it's all fear and side glances while you remind yourself not to mention how much you hate the company, or the whole industry really, or maybe even just the world.

But then you do.  You mention all of it.  I mean really, you spend thirty plus years training your body to think it's okay to do whatever the fuck it wants once some liquor is in it and then suddenly you're expected to maintain your professional integrity while bonding with the team over tequila.  It's ridiculous!

You can take a certain solace in your friend requests the next morning, but it's a mixed bag - you've achieved a certain popularity within the team, but also a greater likelihood of being fired.