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Friday, Apr. 12, 2002 / 6:34 p.m. ~No More Fucking Around~ I called my Senator on my lunch break. I feel so empowered! Granted, I did not speak to my Senator, but I called him. So I spoke to some guy who answered the phone, still, it was a first for me, and I was excited and nervous. Why did I call my Senator on my lunch break? Well, you see, it's like this here, I am on a couple of email list servs. I think that's what they're called, groups that have email lists, and these are political, activist stuff, and I got this email today asking me to call my Senator, to ask him to vote against whatever amendment is going to allow for drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. There was even a sample message for me to call and leave on voice mail, just insert my name and talk away. Only thing was, someone answered the phone, so I was nervous, and I read straight from the sample message� "Hello, my name is ______ and I am calling to ask Senator Cleland to vote against drilling in the Arctic Wildlife Refuge�.", and the guy says, "Okay, can I get your name and address?", and I'm thinking, Um, I just gave you my name, dildo, but I don't say that. I give my name again and I hear him write it down, along with my address, and he assures me the Senator is opposed to drilling in the Arctic National Refuge, and the amendment is not quite yet up for a vote, even though my email told me, in RED FONT, to call my Senator TODAY!!! Still, I felt really good about it, and thought about how I have this cool long distance company, Working Assets, and how they encourage calls to Washington Officials during the week, during lunch hour, how it might be free or something, I've never done it. But I did, I called Senator Max Cleland's office, in Washington, and so what if I didn't speak to him directly, I made myself heard, and that is SO fucking cool! Isn't it? Yeah, I thought so. It's 4:16 p.m. as I write this, I'm in my cube, my radio is on, tuned to the local "Classic Rock" station for a change (the college station has their Friday crap show on), and it's CSN, and sometimes Y, singing "Carry On". CSNY are playing here next week, and I'm considering going. I saw them before, in the '70s, but with Y??? I can't remember. You know, kind of like the '60s, if you can remember much of the '70s you didn't live through them, or if you did, you weren't having enough fun. Regardless, I've digressed and I am sorry. Tonight is the Ralph Nader Democracy Rising happening, and I'm trying to prod myself to go. I need to go. I want to go, I just don't want to go. You know? Since I didn't get my $10 ticket in advance, it's now a $15 ticket, at the door, and I don't know what to expect at all, aside from seeing people I know, listening to passionate people espouse familiar dogma and liberal propaganda, my kind of stuff. Besides, Patti Smith will be there, singing even, and "Other Stress Free Artists". It's a "People Have the Power Rally", hmmmm� Sure, sure, I can spend the money, and when I see Dianne I can give her money for the bus on the 19th, and I can commit to this stuff. I need to. Being a lazy activist accomplishes nothing. What else is on my mind? I want to call that fucker back at my ISP's Tech Support hotline and give him a piece of my mind, well, not a piece, I want to keep all of my mind, but I want to tell him how stupid he is and get him fired. He's giving out bad advice to people. The problem was I couldn't access the Interweb, certain sites, and it was a random thing, I could, I couldn't, I could get email, I couldn't, it was clearly a problem with the company's access, but he had me thinking it was my PC. Hah! My olde PC is fine, thank you. Netscape 4.5, Windows 95, 486DX, leave me the fuck alone. (Of course I want a new computer, are you crazy?!) I've received so many cards and letters from people wanting to know about the "incident" at work yesterday! Not. I alluded to this thing, but didn't write more, and it's so bizarre, I don't know. Listerine is an evil devil-spawned freak, we know this. Today she's been mumbling and humming to herself, cutting paper, tearing paper, taking markers and marking paper, like MARKING paper, cutting, mumbling, humming, it's so fucking weird, I can't tell you (who is this "you" person?). Anyway, yesterday she swabbed her desk with cheap Avon perfume, from one of those sample wipe things, and in the process she erected a giant house-sized termite-killing tent cloud of odoriferous awfulness! It was first thing in the morning yesterday and it made me nauseous as hell. I asked her about it, "Hey, List, did you like spill some perfume or like what?" and she says that Veronica was eating sausage and she was feeling sick smelling it (I LOVE the smell of sausage!) and so she put on perfume. "Put on"? Hah! One thing led to another and we were all walking by her cube when she was away, smelling, gossiping, talking about how horrible it smelled, how freaky she is, etc., and we had a meeting about being more considerate of people's "sensitivities"� tee hee, it was so funny, so absurd and surreal. And then, and THEN, Listerine and Veronica met with the Manager (M) and D., the Supervisor for hours in M's office, then we had another meeting. Hence today's paper cutting, tearing, mad highlighting with markers, and incessant mumbling/humming. Jesus, she's a fucking freak, I tell you! Every so often Lulu and I look at each other and roll our eyes, make faces, sort of like, "Wow, can you fucking BELIEVE this woman? What is her DEAL?!", but we don't actually say anything. It was weird yesterday, all day, the work, the home, the funky Interweb experience, etc. "Magic Carpet Ride" is on now. I cranked it in an effort to disguise Listerine's "noises" - I'm serious, I wish "you" could hear her� you would not believe it! You would not! We just broke out a spontaneous game of balloon volleyball, all but Listerine, and it felt great! She sits and hums and cuts. Remember that guy in Stephen King's short story, The Langoliers, the guy who tore long strips of paper because he was a freak? That's a good story actually, very creepy, but as always, it has a funky ending. And the TV movie was good too, very true to the story. I guess I'll end this too, it's been fun having you around, dear diary� *OH WOW! We just had a horrible incident, Listerine took a pair of scissors and murdered our balloon, it was the freakiest thing I've even seen, and we're all talking about it and I'm freaked out! More later� **I'm home now, I'm still shaking, I actually started crying at work, Lulu patted me on the back, genuinely concerned, and I openly talked of my fear of Listerine, as if she weren't still sitting right behind me in her cubicle, listening, no doubt. I told D., the Supervisor that Listerine is a "freak", and I said I'm sorry, but I meant it. I apologized for my adrenalized reaction, but when I told D. I may not come back, go back to that job on Monday, or ever, she said, "Take me with you!". I came this close to gathering my photos of N and G, my personal files, and walking out and never going back, I told Penelope and Lulu, "I'm not sure I can come back here on Monday", and that was when I started to cry. Why? Because Listerine freaks my shit! Is that a valid sentence? I remember Roadiepig once writing to me telling me to be careful around her, that people like her have been known to bring firearms to their jobs, and I said, Oh, no, not Listerine, but now�if you could've seen her stab that balloon with those scissors, then when I told her, half jokingly, but so angrily, "That was my personal property you know", she said, "Yes, ____, I know, that was your birthday balloon and you were showing it to everyone, passing it along to everyone and you shouldn't have been playing with that balloon anyway�" and I just think, now, what if my hand had strayed into her cubicle, would she have stabbed it????? D. says, quietly, seriously, so deadly seriously, "Do you believe that when she stabbed that balloon it was a substitute for something else? If you believe that, we have a meeting on Monday, do you believe that?" and when I left I was fearful, I said aloud, knowing Listerine could hear me, "You are the spawn of the devil!", me the Agnostic! I do believe in inherent evil, I believe that Listerine is evil personified as much as I believe Penelope is Angelic and all that is good. I'm upset, kids, major fuckingly upset, and I need to go see Ralph Nader and hang out with old hippies and grassroots organizers, and see people I know and all I want to do is get very inebriated and tell someone what happened! I want Lulu to pat my back some more, I want a hug, I want to fuck someone silly, and yes, I do look at porn, or I used to, so much it would make your head spin. I used to go into work telling Wendy, an ex co-worker, "You've got to go to this site I found, it has FREE streaming videos, but on my PC it's so slow, it's like IN, OUT, IN, OUT, until the guy comes all over the woman's ass, or her stomach or whatever, and it's SO amazing, you should see it!" and she would laugh� and later she wanted me to have sex with her, and her boyfriend, together. Just goes to show you. And there was the roommate of my good friend B., the one I'd found so attractive, and how young is he? Jesus, god, the guy was like 22 or so at the time, like three years ago, and we were at B.'s Christmas party and everyone was very stoned and drunk, big fat spliffs made their way my way every few minutes, we were SO high, and the beer was imported and good, and he and I sat at B.'s laptop looking at my favorite porn site, and then he showed me even more free porn, and people came and left, and soon everyone was gone, and B. was upstairs in the loft, asleep and snoring, and this guy's hand was on my leg, and he was taking off my hiking boots and rubbing my feet, and I was melting slowly into him, and, and, and, well, yeah. See where porn'll get you! People do freak out when I tell them I like to look, and perhaps, as in Steve's case, and the case of the guy who used to write to me on ICQ, the one in London, well, they may take it too far. The energy is weird, yes, Mark, you are right. It's a New Moon, the Lottery drawing is huge, we were so excited, we were blowing off steam on a Friday, a Call Center party, playing with my last Birthday balloon and the evil bitch stabbed it like she was killing it, or me, or ? I don't know what to do. I said, "First the lynching photos, and everything else, the crosses she painted on her desk with WhiteOut, the perfume yesterday, now this, what the fuck is next?!" and, no, I didn't say "fuck", but it was really hard not to swear, I bit my tongue, I held back, and when the tears started and the fear rose in me, I thought I couldn't stop, but here I am, and it's 6:47 and this thing starts at 7:00 and I need to get cash and go. So, fine. But this is here, and on Monday, well, on Monday, I want to deliver an ultimatum, and yes, I may walk out, and if it's on principle, I will survive. If I walk out because this woman racially harassed me and they did nothing, and now she's stabbing my personal property, and I fear for my safety and they do nothing, yes, it's worth walking out, yes, I'll be okay, it's time to take action, no more fucking around. Cost of the War in Iraq
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