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When I was in high school I remember this one day sitting in the AV department with some friends while they edited a film during one of our spare blocks. The room was otherwise void of people so they’d put on this spoken word by Henry Rollins, the front man of a punk band from decades past. He looks like this pretty scary guy with a big thick neck, covered in tattoos and like he’d break you by merely looking your direction but in reality he’s this somewhat sensitive soul, even with his somewhat abrasive delivery. One of the more poignant pieces was about how reality television never really does mimic a true reality. It always sticks out in my mind because he gives this image of just how boring it would be to watch someone in a soup factory labeling the cans (which I’m sure, more often than not is done with a machine – but that’s beside the point) and how we’d rather watch shows like Friends where they never seem to work much but float from one coffee shop to a party and panic about having the wrong pair of shoes on. Sometimes I think this about my own life except with a measure of the sitcom, “the office,” thrown in.
Last week our IT guy comes back from lunch with this dreadfully awful cowboy hat and I, being as brash as I am, burst into laughter asking him, “What the heck is THAT?!” We have that sort of relationship where we poke fun at one another and I’m convinced I usually have the leg up in our office banter. He’s a bit of a weird guy and he claimed people would respect him more and when you see a hat like this for $2 at the dollar store it would be a shame not to pick it up. I beg to differ. So yes, my job might be a relative sitcom. Today we ran out of coffee so being one of the premiere coffee drinkers everyone asks me where to find more, why we don’t have any and when will it arrive as though I somehow have any power in the matter. But in the other situations it’s just like stamping of the soup cans. I spend time on the phone, I email, I fill out paperwork and then proceed to shuffle it around only interrupted by a half hour lunch break and daydreaming of January. I also have this very brief segue in the fall where I get to plan for our Christmas party because I’m the head of our social committee but even then… it’s short lived.
Thankfully I only come in three days a week now and every time I leave work I think, “this is good, finally I will be able to explore who I am and the things that I love and can contribute in the world.” It’s a joy to know that I’m beginning to walk out this lifestyle even before the move.
Now back at home I spent an entire day locked up working on soap yesterday. I was fortunate that Wilson responded to my please on Facebook to have a friend over for dinner. After we made some yummy fajitas (with smoked paprika!), she quickly ran off to a bridal shower for a couple hours and upon her return we watched a film. It centered around a neurotic 30 something single woman in New York who falls in love with a Frenchman after being terribly unlucky in love. On the whole it certainly painted French males as exceedingly charming which I’d like to suggest was maybe a tad TOO ideal for any man to live up to (and no, I’m not a man hater), but while I’m not looking for love I did feel pretty excited about sitting in a café for a glass of wine, wandering and getting lost on the mess of Parisian streets and wearing dresses or sporting one of my many striped outfits. Thankfully one things I won’t need to worry myself about is sorting through the baggage of being desperate or neurotic like the character but at least she took a leap and flew to France and on a whim decided to stay a little longer to live a little in what might be a fleeting moment. So while I might not entirely share her story I can certainly appreciate the, “moments.”
