In the ten days since I’ve written my last, angst-filled post, Teenage Wasteland, bitching about my woman being gone and the weather being shitty like I’m Hank Williams, Jr. on a three-day bender, a lot has happened and nothing has happened.
The Universe is a great lover of Irony, in all it’s myraid layers and forms, so the weather has been beautiful these past ten days. Just fucking b-e-a-utiful. Almost ten days of mid-eighties temperatures, no clouds, with that deep, azure blue sky I haven’t seen anywhere but here in the northwest. And I’ve been a few places in my life, Compton, Long Beach, Newport Beach, where they’ll stick a shiv in you for wearing Gucci on Ralph Lauren tuesdays. I even drove through Newark, Noo Jersey, once. Didn’t see the sky in Newark because, really, have you been to Newark? Oh yeah, homey’s been around the block and seen a lot of sky, but homey hasn’t seen a sky like the one’s they got up here in the upper left corner of these United States. I can’t be all angst-filled with the pain of missing my woman when I can go outside, take a deep breath and look into the deep blue yonder.
Also, she came back a couple of days later when she was done with her trip. Its not like she wasn’t ever coming back or anything.
Again with the irony, I spent the past week working downtown in my office, which is a long, rectangular room. Its on the inside of the hallway so naturally it has no windows. Working conditions are sparse. I set up my laptop on a couple of folding tables I’ve arranged into an L to give me the illusion that I have a lot of desk space on which to work. Since all of my work is confined to the ethereal world of bits and bytes emanating from the 19 inch monitor I’ve hooked my laptop to, all that table space is a magnet for papers of all sorts to multiply in strange and carnal ways best left undiscussed, but which I assure you I’ve had no hand in assisting.
I share this office with two other, regular, coworkers, and one or two others who may flit in and out as their project situation demands. One of the regulars is pretty quiet. He’s set up his folding tables in the opposite corner and hides behind a couple of boat anchor crt monitors. Sometimes I’ll look up and be surprised he’s still there, much less breathing. He does have the uncanny ability to start making strange, nonsensical noices when the room is at it’s most quiet. He does this, he told me once, because it IS so quiet.
The other coworker is the exact opposite. He’s not loud. He’s one of those people who makes noises without being aware they are making noises. In his case, he exhales. Frequently. These are not sighs. Nor are they the great rushing exhalations you might make after taking a deep, cleansing breath to relax and drop some stress. No, these exhalations are the forced release of air after holding it a moment at the top of your lungs and letting the pressure build until you relax and release, accompanied by a satisfied grunt. You know, that grunting noise your grandpa always made from behind the bathroom door each morning. Yeah, I know.
He makes this sound very frequently and today his frequency was high.
But that’s not the worst of it.
Several months ago, a set of computer speakers was hooked to an Apple airport wireless router. We all listened to a variety of music. Mostly pop, some trance and house. Over time, more and more trance and house. Grunting coworker was embolded by the musical path down which we travelled. You see, he is a big fan of drum and bass, a style of music completely devoid of melody. A BIG fan.
Because he came in early and the rest of us were seemingly silent on the matter, he started to play his collection of, um, ‘music’. This went on for a few weeks, while I, a person who will go to great lengths to avoid confrontation, suffered mightily in silence. For the most part it was okay because I had my iPod and headphones, but there’s just times when you don’t want to listen to music over headphones, where the pressure of the ear pads is annoying or stifling or something. And when I wasn’t listening to my music, I was enduring the pain of ten inch nails being driven through my eyes into my brain by repetitive drum and bass tracks. I swear drum and bass is Satan’s theme song. The only place such a thing could come is through a crack in the earth that reached all the way to the deepest, darkest pit of hell, where hideous, wretched demons feast on the soft, pale flesh of quivering, doe-eyed virgins and fart out drum and bass.
So one day, while he was discussing the merits of Satan’s music in a serious manner, as if the subject could even be discussed thusly, we were all given an opportunity to share our opinion. This is what I said, “While I respect your choice in music and your right to listen to your choice in music, I find it extremely repetitive and monotonous. It feels like evil gremlins are driving rusted spikes into my brain through my eyes.”
“I like trance and ambient, though.”
The next day, he brought in a pair of headphones and started to listen to Satan’s music that way. But see, he’s not a quiet person. He would drum his hands on his table, or inexplicably worse, on his thighs for a few beats and then stop. And then start. And then stop.
And the weirdest thing. IT’S ALWAYS THE SAME BEAT! Oh blessed irony.
To cap it all off, the entire time I’m writing this, Tucker is sitting on the keyboard of the second laptop, exposing his privates as he gets busy down there cleaning.
