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Wednesday, Jul. 03, 2002 / 7:35 p.m. ~My Sofa Misses My Ass/I'm 41, You Know~ Right now my cable television is static, image, static, image, Pat wants the contestants to spin the wheel, static, pick a letter, static, applause, static, is there a "P", Pat?, static, you get the idea. How does this happen? I come home with the intention of sitting on the sofa, the sofa which has not seen nearly enough of my ass lately, and I'm fine there, watching "Guiding Light" on tape, the cable being out, in, out, in, etc. Then, "I'll just check my email", and then I am reading diaries, and then I want to write, I've neglected it, and then I'll want to check my stats again, and then I'll want to check out the Moby boards, and what about tomorrow's horoscope, and when am I going to hook up this new PC tower sitting on the floor? What am I waiting for? Right now I'm not hanging out with Branford, and I feel so guilty. I'm eating frozen fried corn, well, it's no longer frozen, I heated it in the microwave (I've never liked saying "I nuked it"), and I'm here, writing, but I should've driven into town in all the post-thunderstorm traffic, right? No, it was horrible, helicopters flying over the Interstate horrible. When you see the traffic stop ahead, speeds reduced from 80 mph to 20 mph, tail lights all lit up, red everywhere, 'copters flying around like vultures over a fresh kill, it's not good. It's just not good, and all I want to do is come home. Yesterday we had an intense storm at the end of the day at work. 5:00, the first crew heading out, the sky darkens, the thunderclaps are closer and closer, lightning fills the sky, and when the lightning strikes at the same time we hear the thunderclap there are screams all around, power surges, the PC surge protectors all buzzing and whining, shrill alarms letting us know what we already know, the power is going out and coming in, out and in, just like my cable tonight. And our phone server went with it, with the storm, with the lightning. We all logged off PCs, turned off phones, stood in the most dangerous place, in front of the wall of windows on the front of the building, stood to watch the hail, as Lulu remembers it was golfball sized, but it was marbles, marbles of ice falling for 10 minutes straight. I timed it. We watched it bounce off a big white SUV in the front parking lot, hypnotized, mesmerized. And stared at the tree which fell over, split in half. And the rain which fell sideways. Today, same time, 5:00, the sky was darker than yesterday, the rain came, the lightning lit up the sky, I oohed and ahhed like watching fireworks, but the phones were already down, they'd been down all day. Our Call Center lines were down, not all phone service. This happens a lot. Far too often. (fried corn is fucking weird) Our computer call tracking system was down as well, all day today. We spent the first two and one half hours chatting, and I read a bit, listened to some music, chatted a bit, read, chatted, looked around, stood up, sat down, went to the bathroom, the usual, just no paperwork processing, no computers, no phones. Weird. Late in the day they re-routed the lines, sent them to the main switchboard, all calls sent to our inside lines ("Ma'am, the calls are coming from INSIDE the house!!!!!" Yeee, yeeee, yeeee, yeeee - you know, scary violin music, stabbing sounds famously duplicated first in "Psycho", but I digress), and calls were continually sent, so we'd be on a call, and another would come in, and they'd be sent to our PERSONAL VOICE MAIL, so we were collecting messages all day, calling people back, and it was fucking crazy. At some point we were all called into the training room, two departments under the control of my Manager (M), and she looked at us teary eyed, said it was no way to start a holiday, no way to begin this Holiday, but she had to tell us, it was news, changes made in the company, and first I'd thought SOMEONE DIED! Then, OH FUCK, WE LOST OUR JOBS, YES!! But she wanted to tell us our Site Manager lost her job, effective immediately. Oh. THAT's it? You're kidding. This is GREAT!! Bitch got what she deserved, why in hell did it take so long?! Oh, I'm bad, I'm mean, I'm unforgiving. Oh, she deserved it, worse even, I am so fucking glad I can't stand it. And the previous Site Manager (a MAN!) is returning to take over. I liked him. He's an Aries, he's very nice. He manages. Things will be better, I know it. Too many women, too much petty bullshit, too much ineffective crap, too much to say, I need another bite of funky frozen, but heated, fried corn. Right, right, right. So that was interesting. Being kept at work all day while everything was fucked was interesting. Our adaptability was very interesting. I love the way we deal with all of it, no matter what. Verify from the database now, not the tracking, tracking's down, phones are down, transferred calls, check your messages, yes, sure, we can do anything. Just say the word, what is it NOW? Fine. Got it. Can we go home yet? No? Okay. Here we go. Whatever. So when the second storm came, and it ended just in time for me to walk to my car, just exactly like yesterday, and I got on the Interstate and saw the tail lights, the helicopters, I knew I wouldn't go meet Branford. I'm sorry, I just couldn't. But I couldn't just sit on the sofa that misses my ass either. Later maybe? I looked in the mirror last night, just before bed, my eyes not puffy at all, but the lids stretched tight, thin line of red/purple just above my lashes, like natural eyeliner, long lashes, black lashes, hazel green/brown eyes, and my skin looked clean, clear, fine wrinkles under my eyes if I smile, a fine network, a web of sorts, only when I smile, and hair so dark people think it's black, but it's not, and I imagined someone new seeing me, someone seeing me that close, someone I know, someone I want to know, or I want to know me, and I thought, "I'm 41. I can't believe I'm 41. That's old.", but it's not. I read about celebs in Entertainment Weekly all the time, people my age, or just a few years younger, older. Tom Cruise turning 40. Antonio Banderas, 41. Marg Helgenberger, what?, 43?, 42? Who else? George Clooney, 39?, 40?, what? Julia Louis Dreyfus, 41? All these famous and really successful people, seemingly in the prime of their lives, all my age. We should hang out. Compare notes. We grew up in the same time period. We're that weird generation, not X, not quite Baby Boomers, maybe Y. But it's not old. It sounds old when I tell myself whilst looking in that mirror. "I'm 41", or "This is 41", or "This is me at 41", but I'm still a kid. I feel younger than everyone, even people younger than me. And I looked beautiful in that moment, eyes stretched and tired, but open wide. I wanted certain someones to see me in that moment, it was a good moment. There may be another, they come and they go. Usually I am not happy with what I see. I am trying to get used to me in my 40s, trying to decide what it feels like, what I look like, and who I am, what other people think when they look in these eyes, when they see the gray hairs floating above the dark suface, long and wild in their carefree abandon. Happy to be gray hairs. Should I have gone anyway? Could we have had barbecue and cocktails? Is he pissed? Did I ruin his plans? I think he'll go out and have a fine time without me. You can read his diary, but I'm not ready to link to it here. It's in my favorites now. Another person who knows me, another diary here, in Diaryland. Cost of the War in Iraq
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