Total Perspective Vortex
What really happened to Trillian? Theories abound, but you can see what she's really been up to on this blog. If you're looking for white mice, depressed robots, or the occasional Pan Galactic Gargleblaster you might be better served here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/cult/hitchhikers/guide/.
Don't just sit there angry and ranting, do something constructive.
In the words of Patti Smith (all hail Sister Patti): People have the power.
Contact your elected officials.
Don't be passive = get involved = make a difference.
Words are cool.
The English language is complex, stupid, illogical, confounding, brilliant, beautiful, and fascinating.
Every now and then a word presents itself that typifies all the maddeningly gorgeousness of language. They're the words that give you pause for thought. "Who came up with that word? That's an interesting string of letters." Their beauty doesn't lie in their definition (although that can play a role). It's also not in their onomatopoeia, though that, too, can play a role. Their beauty is in the way their letters combine - the visual poetry of words - and/or the way they sound when spoken. We talk a lot about music we like to hear and art we like to see, so let's all hail the unsung heroes of communication, poetry and life: Words.
Here are some I like. (Not because of their definition.)
Mamas, Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up to be Smart Girls
(A Trillian de-composition, to the tune of Mamas, Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboys)
Mama don’t let your babies grow up to be smart girls
Don’t let them do puzzles and read lots of books
Make ‘em be strippers and dancers and such
Mamas, don’t let your babies grow up to be smart girls
They’ll never find men and they’re always alone
Even though men claim they want brains
Smart girls ain’t easy to love and they’re above playing games
And they’d rather read a book than subvert themselves
Kafka, Beethoven and foreign movies
And each night alone with her cat
And they won’t understand her and she won’t die young
She’ll probably just wither away
Mama don’t let your babies grow up to be smart girls
Don’t let them do puzzles and read lots of books
Make ‘em be strippers and dancers and such
Mamas, don’t let your babies grow up to be smart girls
They’ll never find men and they’re always alone
Even though men claim they want brains
A smart girl loves creaky old libraries and lively debates
Exploring the world and art and witty reparteé
Men who don’t know her won’t like her and those who do
Sometimes won’t know how to take her
She’s rarely wrong but in desperation will play dumb
Because men hate that she’s always right
Mama don’t let your babies grow up to be smart girls
Don’t let them do puzzles and read lots of books
Make ‘em be strippers and dancers and such
Mamas, don’t let your babies grow up to be smart girls
They’ll never find men and they’re always alone
Even though men claim they want brains
Life(?) of Trillian
Single/Zero
Thursday, August 20, 2009
Since the phone wasn’t ringing non-stop with employers vying for my talent and experience I decided to spend some time with my mother. I was climbing the walls, almost literally, at home. My condo is tiny, and I knew that, but I didn’t realize how tiny until unemployment forced me to spend more than a few hours after work and sleeping there. Crimony. That place is tiny. Sheesh. What was I thinking when I bought it?
Oh yeah. It’s what I could afford. And in a few weeks I won’t be able to afford it
I hate being unemployed.
Two and half weeks into unemployment and I truly believe I am losing the little sanity I had left.
Why aren’t employers calling me? Why? Why??!!!! They have needs, they have vacant positions, and I have the skills, experience and ambition to help them fulfill those needs. And, I can start immediately. Now.
Done deal, right?
Apparently not.
Apparently it doesn’t work like that.
I’m not naive. I knew the bleakness of the job market. I didn’t just begin my job search when I was officially laid off. I’ve been hitting the employment circuit hard, and I mean hard for quite a while. I never really stopped looking for a job. It’s kind of a hobby for me. I’ve been so miserable at work for so long that I scour the “career” pages of company web sites the way eager single people scour dating sites for new dating profiles. (Oh yeah, I do that, too. Cripes. I am a loser. No job. No man. No money. Soon-to-be homeless…) But since December, when the financial picture at my (former) company took a turn for the worse, I increased the intensity of my search. More than just casually perusing the career sections of company websites and looking at the employment websites, I started, gasp, networking. Putting out feelers. Inquiring among people I trusted, “friends” in the industry, to see if there were any inside opportunities lurking out there.
There weren’t.
And so it came to pass that I was laid off.
And the full force of what that means hit me, hard. I was already looking for a job, already “out there” with my hat in the employment ring.
The difference, now, is that I really will do anything. I will take part time or free lance jobs. Short term consulting gigs. Questionable jobs for cash with questionable people. I’m really not above much of anything. I won’t kill anyone. I won’t steal anything. I won’t work with dead animals. (There are jobs in the meat packing industry so no, as someone pointed out to me, I can’t be truly desperate or I’d take a job in a meat packing plant) But other than that I’m open to almost anything. I’ll at least consider anything.
After a week and a half in my tiny condo, listening to my neighbor’s daily rafter shaking Megadeth and Gwar concerts, I had to get out, away. (Seriously. I have no idea what the guy does for money. I’ve lived next door to him for two years and he rarely leaves his one room studio. If the condo association rules would allow it he’d listen to Megadeth, Gwar and Metallica non-stop, every day and night, amps at 11. The neighbor on the other side of him finally “reported” his midnight – 3 AM bass laden yell fests and those have somewhat abated. I was thinking things were sort of manageable. Every couple of weeks he’d lapse and give us a 2 AM AC/DC wakeup call in the form of amps at 11 guitar solos, but every couple of weeks I can handle. I didn’t love it, but, the compromise was manageable. And then I started staying home in the days. For those about to rock, we salute you.)
The thing is, I don’t mind much of his music. It’s the volume and bass reverberating through the walls that’s annoying. And given my state of stress and anxiety, the angry bass laden yelling only made me more agitated.
Which is why I was almost literally climbing the walls.
I figured I could apply to jobs and wait for a call for interview at my mother’s as easily as in my tiny death-rock filled cave.
Plus my mother has a gazillion odd jobs she needs done so at least I’d be busy.
And in that respect it’s been good. I have been busy. Really busy.
Which is good.
Keeps my mind off things. And helps her. Win-win.
I’ve seeded the front lawn – seed, fertilizer and top soil, thank you very much. I made a lovely vignette of cedar mulch, ground cover and an evergreen tree where my mother’s rose garden used to reside. No. I do not share my parents’ love of gardening. I have to wear full body armor if I’m handling anything alive and green or else I break out in hives. And I get really sneezy and my eyes water when I breathe in pollen. And that’s with an allergy mouth and nose mask. Which helps prevent an asthma episode.
So yeah. I’m not really much of a gardener.
But it needs to be done and so I’m doing it.
We’re also cleaning out the basement and attic. Which I dread. I hate it more than the yardwork. In fact the yardwork is a pleasant diversion from cleaning out the basement and attic. Facing my parents’ entire marriage – and even before their marriage – is rough. Sorting through all that stuff, the stuff that was deemed important enough to keep all these years, is really difficult. I prefer the turf of the yard over the emotional turf in all those boxes stored in the basement and attic.
I make daily trips to the local library to use the wi-fi. I scour every employment site and company website I can find. I read the trade journals and newspapers.
After a few days of this ritual I noticed I wasn’t alone. Every day the same people show up to do exactly what I’m doing. These do not appear to be unemployable slackers. They appear to be displaced professionals. Like me.
We take over one side of the library, the computer and periodicals section, while hordes of pre-schoolers boisterously enjoy story hour with Miss Sally. The pre-schoolers’ mothers congregate in the fiction area sipping coffee and share gossip – more boisterously than their pre-school children. I thought libraries were supposed to be quiet sanctuaries for studying and reading. In this library, if you seek a quiet haven for reading or studying you sign up to use a study room, small conference type rooms with doors. This seems weird and abstract to me, but I’m a stuffy old fuddy duddy, apparently.
I’ve “befriended” a couple of the other job seeking regulars. Befriended as much as people looking for jobs at the local library can befriend each other. We all have the same expression, the same desperate zeal for the trade publications and job sites. We share that lust for work. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not convivial jocularity among us. I notice a lot of looking over shoulders and hiding laptop screens – no one wants to share a potential job with anyone else. When I let the cat out of the bag that I’m not looking for a local job the relief among the other job seekers was palpable. I was no longer a threat. And that’s when I was accepted, “befriended” among the job seeking library regulars.
When I’m not helping my mother around her house or at the library looking for a job, I have a new social circle.
The retirees in my tiny home town. Most of them are friends of my parents. I’ve known many of them for years. So it’s not totally weird. It’s a lot weird, but not totally weird.
It started innocently enough. Elmer had to have emergency pacemaker repair surgery so his ticket to senior night at the Tigers game was going to be wasted. Knowing I’m a baseball/Tigers fan, one of my dad’s friends rang my mother to see if I’d like to go. Next thing I knew I was on a bus with a bunch of senior citizens heading off to Comerica Park under the guise of “caregiver” to a few of the seniors. That ruse was concocted by the seniors so that I could use the senior ticket. A good time was had by all. The Tigers won.
The seniors seemed to like having me join them. They told me stories about my dad. I told them stories about my dad. They wanted to buy me all manner of stuff. A Tiger pennant, a Tiger cap (even though I was already wearing one), a Tiger shirt (even though I was already wearing one), a Tiger ball, a plush toy Tiger, popcorn, beer…if it’s sold at Generica, I mean Comerica Park, one of the seniors wanted to buy it for me. After I explained that I’m vegetarian no one offered to buy me a hot dog. I heard a lot about various internal ailments and medications that prevented my baseball companions from enjoying most of the food and beverage at the ball park. Leo isn’t supposed to eat hot dogs or Cracker Jacks, but since his wife wasn’t around and I was allowed into the inner circle of trust, he enjoyed not one but two hot dogs and a whole box of Cracker Jacks. I sat next to Leo on the bus ride home. I discovered why he’s not supposed to eat hot dogs and Cracker Jacks.
After that outing I’ve been invited to tag along on my mother’s outings with her friends as well as some invites “just for me.”
They know I'm unemployed, they think it's just awful that it happened to me. They all agree that my company is stupid for letting me go.
They want to help me. So they keep offering invites on their outings or, more usually, a trade for chores. Things I would happily do for free, and have done for free in the past. But now that I'm unemployed they want to help, they want to "pay" me.
“We saw what a lovely job Trillian did on your back garden. Do you suppose she’d help us re-seed a few bare spots in our yard?”
So, off I trot to sprinkle some grass seed and fertilizer on a senior citizen’s lawn. They want to pay me. When I won’t take their money they want to give me things. One of my mother’s friends wanted to give me a Mark the Bird Fydrich signed baseball for spreading some mulch around his oak trees and raking up falling crab apples.
Another tried to give me an art deco diamond necklace from the ‘30s, a real diamond necklace, for setting up her digital converter box to her ancient television.
Leo's wife dropped off a quart of blueberries and five instant lottery tickets for me in payment for "putting up with Leo" at the Tiger game. She patted my hand and quietly said, "Leo was laid off once. It's difficult. I hope one of those tickets is a big winner."
When word got out that I have a laptop and the library has free wi-fi a new service was born. All those seniors who are not online aren’t afraid of the internet. They’re just cheap. They don’t want to buy a computer or pay for cable internet. But boy are they chomping at the bit to surf the net and, get this, buy stuff online. Almost daily, now, one of them shows up with a catalog, pages dogeared and notes scrawled out in senior citizen handwriting on the items they want me to order online. Since I’m in the inner circle of trust they’re quite happy to give me their credit card numbers along with their catalogs and internet shopping lists. Because they’re cheap – why pay postage and send a check to a company with their order when Trillian can just order it online for free?
Why indeed. So now I’m ordering products I didn’t even know existed. I’m getting email from companies I didn’t even know exist. I’d rather not know many of the products exist.
But it’s an education in geriatric marketing. And I’m helping them. Which is cool. Fine by me. They don’t have children or grandchildren around to help them. Young people, people not retired, have left the Detroit area, Michigan in general, in droves. Especially in my hometown. So a "tech savvy" and able bodied younger person with a laptop is quite a hot commodity. And hey, these are my parents' friends and neighbors. It’s the least I can do. And it keeps me busy.
My social life hasn’t been this active in years. I’m planning to head back to Chicago next week but the seniors are trying to convince me to stay an extra day so I can join them on the bus trip to the casino. I kid you not. Scarier than the invite, or the prospect of me on a bus with a bunch of senior citizens heading to a casino, is the fact that I'm tempted.
6:01 PM
