bad metaphor

Oh ho ho. I had thought that the drama would be over, but I guess not! I forgot to blog about this when it happened (I was incredibly busy before break) – on my last day of work, I decided to be conciliatory and leave Jodie a letter. The letter was a lot more civil than it ought to have been; I would post it but it’s pretty long. Basically I talked about how there were issues that made it difficult for me to work there, and that part of it was my fault (read: I could have kissed her ass if I really tried), and, uh, hinted that she might consider seeking professional counseling I had my former co-worker, Belle, look over it, and she remarked how civil and sane it sounded, considering the situation. Both of us were curious about Jodie’s reaction, but I haven’t heard from her so far, thankfully.

Earlier today, I received this email in my inbox from Belle:

“Jodie came up to me while I was making some copies and said “Well, I received a poison-pen letter last week”. I ignored her, because she didn’t say anything else, and then she brought it up again. I played dumb, and she gave it to me to read and said “Now keep in mind that she thinks she’s representing all of the faculty and you guys as well”. I was cracking up internally when she said that…little does she know. Then about ten minutes later she sat out at the front desk with me (I was dividing up the evaluation forms) and waited until I was done (so annoying!!!). Then she STILL sat there for a while and finally said “So, what did you think of karenology’s letter?”. I said I thought that it was appropriately presented and that none of it was necessarily out of line. Then she said “Ya, I agree with all of the personal stuff…but do I need therapy?” I laughed and said “that’s none of my business”. And that was that; I gave her no inclination that I was on her side, but I think she still didn’t realize it. She also said “I need to make sure Ned has a copy of this on file”. Ha ha ha. What good is it gonna do? You’re now officially in her files of people that have told her she’s nuts/stupid/rude. You should be proud! Anyway, I thought you’d like to hear the story…”

Ahahahaha! I mean, hahahaha, christ, that’s ridiculous. I would give anything to see Ned’s face if she actually gives him a copy of the letter. Oh for pete’s sake, I didn’t think, anyone, even Jodie, could be this mentally defective…ahahaha!

Like almost everyone under the age of 25 in this town, I’ve been back home for Thanksgiving break. Home, for me, is Wichita, KS, something I don’t really admit with pride. For those of you stumbling on this page that have never been to Wichita, you’re not really missing much. Wichita is home to a butt-load of aircraft manufacturing companies, which have employed many of my relatives (and laid off a good number of them, too). The economy took a big nosedive because of 9/11, so the city administration has been working really hard to boost the economy and bring back all the people that have escaped/are trying to escape this sinking ship. Here are some of the things they’ve done:

- Installed a nice roundabout west of downtown, confounding Wichita drivers (“durr huh? do i go around?”)
- Changed the logo from “Air-capital of the world” (our airport has a grand total of 12 gates, for Chrissakes), to “Wichita: Where the goods are.” What are these goods, you may ask? Damned if I know.
- Put a proposal for an arena up to vote. Now do they know where the arena will be placed, how much it will cost, what they’ll put there? No, that would require too much sensible planning and thinking ahead for Wichita – although, in their defense, they’ve isolated the location to “somewhere downtown.” But they let the people of Wichita vote on the proposal, and guess what? It passed.
- Endless construction projects that seem to take at least three times as long as anywhere else (nothing new for Wichita, really).

Ah, Wichita. The shining beacon of light in the Midwest you are. Also, while in Wichita, I got cut off by a middle-aged woman on her cell phone, in a minivan, with several screaming spawn wreaking havoc in the back. In addition to having several of those ribbon magnets plastered on her bumper, she actually had a soccer ball sticker as well. Christ, can we confirm any more stereotypes here?

Anyway, despite having to spend time in Wichita, break wasn’t so bad. I spent much of the break watching these low-budget, 25 hour long, insanely cheesy and hilarious Chinese movies with my mom. They were dubbed into Vietnamese, which I don’t speak, so my mother had to translate the poorly dubbed Vietnamese into broken English in order for me to follow the absurd plots. One was about the first female “king” of China and her rise to power – I think I learned some Vietnamese from watching it, especially how to say “king,” which was only mentioned fifty billion times (“wang tuang?” Don’t ask me how to spell it!).

Another was called “Return of the Condor Heroes” and I’ve decided that I’m going to write my next novel challenge based on this movie. It’s that awesome. Here’s evidence of its sheer awesomeness – at one point, some people are attacked by bees. Now I’m positive that the movie producer’s total operating budget must have been no more than $500 dollars, thus they couldn’t really afford to hire stunt-bee victims. So as the bees approach, the movie shows a shot of the people being attacked, then switches to some stock footage of bees, and back and forth again. After five minutes of tension-building camera zooms, some cartoon bees that bear little resemblance to the stock bees are drawn all over the people, while off-camera someone’s electric razor emulates the sound of buzzing. Only the cartoon bees aren’t really bees so much as little blobs that winkle and speck as they destroy their human victims. Words can’t convey how hilarious this scene was; I wish I could get footage stills of this scene so I could post them.

Overall, it was nice to spend some time with my mother without getting irritated by her quirks. I think working with Jodie has made me put things into perspective. My mom might be a little nuts sometimes (she told me not to eat too much at my father’s house because she thinks my stepmother will poison me, for instance), but I can deal with her variety of crazy. Which reminds me – I don’t have to deal with Jodie anymore! Hooray!

Gaaaah! This is the second to last day of work, and I’m already contemplating not coming in tomorrow. Or actually showing up to work, but completely smashed. Too bad I have class afterwards, though. Bleh.

So this morning I wake up and I’m completely exhausted. This is a usual thing for me (cheers to sleep deprivation), but for some reason I feel like I’ve been drugged. I go to Milton’s to get coffee, but I’m still falling asleep in class. I wonder what happened, why am I so tired – I went to bed at 12:30 last night, which usually gets me enough sleep – and then I remember that, right before bed, I took some allergy meds. Shit. My cloudy mind is drug-induced.

I come in, and there’s a giant pile of work on my desk. I start working on it, you know, the job I’m being paid to do? She comes out five minutes later, looks at me, and says “oh. You’re here. In the future, I need you to let me know when you’re here so that I know.” Though I have only one more day left I told her, “Okay, I’ll let you know when I come in tomorrow.”

Then a few minutes later, she calls me into her office for a talk. I exchange a look with Belle as I walk down the hallway. Jodie says, “Now, I’ve noticed this passive-aggressive hostility over the last two weeks. This has to stop. I need you to be friendly so we can work together for the rest of this week. Okay?” Argh. I didn’t do anything this morning, other than the work she fucking told me to do! I’ve only got one more day left. Why must she start the drama? I tell her okay, and apologize, for I don’t know what. I’m suddenly grateful that I’m feeling druggy. Otherwise I probably would have told her to take this job and shove it, and walked out right then.

The drugginess is wearing off now. I’ve still got half an hour left, and I’m even leaving early. Sigh.

I knew it was a mistake to sign up for NaNoWriMo this year. Particularly because this has been the busiest semester I’ve had in my entire undergraduate career. In order to finish 50,000 words by the end of the month, the recommended daily pace is to write about 1,700 words per day. Today is the 17th, so I’m supposed to be at 28,900 words.

Where am I at right now? 8,017.

I don’t even have enough time to do all of my homework, what with all the papers and quizzes and tests and board meetings and lectures and work (which I quit, but I still have to be here until next Tuesday). After all the articles on postmodernism and the stories to critique and the Faulkner papers to write, I’m left with negative creative energy. How in the hell does anyone write a novel in November, O Busiest of Months for college students?

I do have an escape strategy planned. If it gets to Nov. 30th and I’m still scrambling, I’ll just start writing stream-of-consciousness, Ginsberg-esque rants about politics. If I’m really desperate, I’ll have my characters tell pages upon pages of dead baby jokes. I may even pun, for Chrissakes. I will win this thing, dagnabbit, even if it means sacrificing the remnants of my sanity for it!

- p.s. – I feel horribly guilty, because I did have plans to do somewhat quality writing. I’m looking over what I’ve written so far, and it’s not exactly stellar. Basically I’ve disregarded everything we talked about in fiction writing class this semester. Passive voice? Check. Telling without showing? Check. Insipid dialogue left unsummarized? Check.

Oh well, c’est la vie. How else am I to pad my word count?