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2001-06-19 / 7:41 p.m. ~Nice work if you can get it~
I've had worse jobs. There was the full service meat counter at the gourmet farmer's market. People would walk up and order, choose the steak, the tongue, the chicken feet, or just breasts, or pork ribs, whatever, "meat", and I'd weigh it and wrap it, standing on my feet, 9 or 10 hours a day. Oh, after the market closed we had to put all the meat away, then clean out the refrigerated cases. One time I lifted up one of the metal plates and discovered an old piece of "meat" surrounded by maggots. Lovely. I was treated like a servant by mostly upper middle class housewives, it was a service job, it was hard, physically, but I learned SO much about meat, and about work. There was the veterinary assistant job. He was the vet we'd taken all our animals to for years, he'd been crazy about my mom, both he and his wife. I knew him, he was nice, I liked him, he offered me a job, as receptionist/assistant. I helped him euthanize a dog once. I was there to hold the door when someone dragged in the Doberman in a bedsheet - he'd just been hit by a car and killed, and he left a little trail of blood across the floor. I once retrieved someone's Afghan Hound from a cage, and he turned and bit me in the face. I threw him to the floor and screamed, grabbed my face, bled all over my hand and the doctor's wife took me to the emergency clinic. I went back to work, briefly, and my face healed, turning interesting shades of yellow and green, and swelling like like it did when I had my wisdom teeth removed. There was the time I cleaned a woman's house, and she would keep me company while I did it, I think because she was lonely. I began to think she was creating messes for me to clean up, for no one could really be that messy, could they? Toothpaste all over the bathroom sink, crap all over the kitchen, on the counters, dishes, things, papers, "stuff", every time, and she'd hang out while I cleaned and we'd talk. She'd buy us lunch, those pre-cooked chickens, cut up, and a soda concoction of which she was especially fond, I think it was orange and Pepsi. She paid me $5/hour and I was there for hours, vacuuming under her bed, cleaning baseboards, polishing, dusting, scrubbing, all the messes she had made just for me to clean. She had originally wanted me to help her plant flowers..... So it goes, on and on, odd jobs, eccentric forays into money-making ventures. A little film production, selling books, etc., etc., etc., but now....... I get paid to read. Oh, not for an editor, not for a publisher, I am waiting for the phone to ring, waiting for documents to process, sitting in a cubicle, waiting, reading. Today I read 2 Entertainment Weeklys, and I read them cover to cover, every word, the ads, everything but the contributor/editorial info. All the reviews of books and videos and television shows and new music and internet sites, and an interesting article about celebriphilia, re: the Bakley killing, all of it, addicted to the act of being informed of the latest entertainment news. When I'm caught up I'll finally finish The Girl's Guide to Hunting and Fishing, because that was a great book. I have lots of books I want to read. But I'm sitting, getting chunky around my mid-section, chunky for a skinny chick, I'm sitting, all day, reading, reading, when I tire of the "therapy" with the girls, when I tire of the "Girl! Gimme some mo' crackers!" and "I ain't complainin', you throw it down with yo' soup", and all the constant eating and talking across cubicles, all the constant Southern African-American woman slang, the FOOD/fashion/sex/food/FOOD talk, the noise, I sit and read. I'm paid handsomely, by comparison, to sit and read. No internet access, not anymore, but I can read all I want. It could be worse, I know. 4.5 miles each way, against traffic (!!!!!), home at lunch, and while I'm there, in my cube, my sandals are off, my feet curled under me, nice comfy chair, computer with Webshots wallpapers, pics of the cats to look at, calendars with the days marked off like I'm in prison, answer the phone if it rings, and READ. It could be so much worse, I know this. Cost of the War in Iraq
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