2004-05-05 || 11:42 a.m.

|| the office ||

this was supposed to be a temporary job. i was laid off from a dot com and i took this for the interim between then and grad school. i've worked here for three years. i used to try very hard to make this all ironic. i want to say that but i don't know what qualifies as irony: i am sitting here with my cheesy secretarial blouse on, complete with lady bow at the neck. there is a centerfold of lionel richie tacked to the wall above me. he's wearing a gold watch, two gold rings, a gold chain bracelet, and nikes. i drink approximately sixty-four ounces of water a day because i have a nalgene bottle that charts out my progress ounce by ounce, and a trip to the water fountain is a trip out of this office. drinking sixty-four ounces of water a day allows for other opportunities, such as regular trips to the restroom, proper hydration, not spending money on drinks, etc.
i don't have any friends at work. my work gang has fled for better jobs in better places. there are co-workers but most of them are horrifying. note to self: take spy pictures of co-workers. be sure to capture rampant eyeliner abuse, farah fawcett feathered bangs, passive-aggression, the smoking of pot in buick regals at mid-morning breaks, complacency, back stabbing, the need to document food brought to potlucks by office disposable camera, clown dolls on cubicle shelves, 10x13" framed pencil drawings of captain kirk and spock, massive collections of stuffed animals (beanie babies R.I.P), screen savers of dogs and chuck zito and the cast of the sopranos. i have taken to taking breaks and lunches alone, carefully avoiding telegraph avenue by walking a block up or down, because telegraph avenue has become bizarro disneyland main street and i can no longer take the daily barrage of crusty punk teen pan handlers and sexual harrassment and the one tarot reader with the hat who always stares at my boobs when he says hello and the slow gait of tourists and human shit and vomit streaking doorways in the mornings. sometimes i just feel really exhausted by the idea of having to interact with people, even in the walking-down-the-street capacity. i don't go to the record stores anymore because i can't take the hey-you-come-here-all-the-time-why-don't-yo-buy-anything feeling. bookstores, too. i only allow myself to go to the sandwich shop two days a week max because i'm afraid of the same sort of feeling. i've started eating at my desk or sometimes if the weather is nice i'll walk up to campus and sit on the grass to read. occasionally it feels like being twelve again. being so self-conscious that i am embarrassed i'm reading jd salinger. i'm embarrassed i am eating noodles that are dripping on my chin and i don't have a napkin. i'm embarrassed i am sitting cross-legged on grass in these pants because surely the guy behind me has the most righteous shot of my butt crack .
my desk is by the window. i look out all day and follow the activity of the kids working at the record store across the street. i have never talked to any of them except for a british guy who is friends with old roommates and was once blocking the hallway at a big party in san francisco. i go in and out of crushes with two of them. i am convinced at least three of the girls really don't like me. one girl cries on her cell phone outside a lot. one girl's hair is getting long. i found her on friendster once and we were connected 96 ways, and i thought of telling her that but decided it was creepy. sometimes i look out the window and try to figure out whom more than anyone i would like to see downstairs at the corner waiting for me. i usually wish michael still worked here so that we could meet and take the scooter at lunch to long life for lunch specials. every once in a while someone i know will be record shopping and will stop at my corner and yell at my window. i'll run down, pre-approved break time or not, and make a dramatic spectacle of things, lots of hugs and yelling, just so that my office and the people of telegraph avenue will take note.

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