Tuesday, March 08, 2005

part of a colloquy

TWO POINTS IN SUPPORT OF THE NOTION THAT I HAVE A LIFE OF SOME KIND

First thing: my rambling days are over and done. No more waking in hotel rooms and wondering where I am (although that stopped happening somewhere in the Philippines or Australia), no more waking in my own bed from nightmares of being stranded on a back road somewhere in the western Alps. No more discarded paperbacks and foreign languages. Goodbye tidy towns and cities of filth. Goodbye to all but my own, I mean. I’ve been booted up the career ladder to the job of producer.

What does this mean? Well. Money. And stillness. I’ve been given more money to sit still, under the operant premise that still people do more paperwork, and that paperwork requires signatures, and signatures – on timesheets, contracts, cost reports, purchase orders, review sheets – are bought with ever-increasing sums of money. It also means horrible stress and the unique aerosol poisons of office life.

It also means an office with a whiteboard of my very own, several walls to shield me from others, and a view of the VIA stockyards. Yeah, that’s premium office space, people.

Second thing: In keeping with the twisted ways in which modern couples communicate, my wife is telling me how she feels about having a baby by writing about it on her website. It’s as if hundreds of people per day are crawling into bed with us to listen to our pillowy talk. Don’t get me wrong – any way that she and I can keep our lives moving on track together is fine by me. After the last year of being constantly on the road, I’ve all but lost the skill of coming home to the same person, the same bed every evening. Now that I’ve traded in my field producing job for a producer job, I have to sharpen my space-sharing skills. And by that I mean I have to wash those dishes.

THE SUCCINCT REFUTATION OF THE NOTION THAT I HAVE ANY LIFE AT ALL

We spent last weekend doing absolutely nothing but watching movies. Wait – The Lotus designed some miniature banner ads for her friends’ weblogs. She also read some fine literature by noted contemporary authors. But I did nothing except watch movies. Solaris (again). The Third Man (again). Before Sunset (again). Napoleon Dynamite (twice). I also ate some grilled eel, which really does not speak well of me.

9 comments:

Friday Films said...

Yeah. You might as well buy the retirement home now, what with all the lifeless movie watching you've been engaged with. Heck, I wasted nearly six years of my life on that shit. And you know, none of it helped when I was finally faced with the back of Don McKellar's head in a hotel lounge a few short hours ago.

palinode said...

If I had the chance to say one thing to the back of Don McKellar's head, I would tell it that it was hairy.

Anonymous said...

If I had the chance to say one thing to the back of Don McKellar's head, I would tell it that it was hairy.

blackbird said...

-Just back from the wife's. She says YOU started the whole baby business. Now is your chance to tell her you just wanted sex.

Then again, now is her chance to point out that they just pulled you out of the field. Perfect time for a baby. I tried that, plus, I told him it would take at least a year to HAVE a baby in our lives. It took nine months from that moment - so good luck.
Was going to write a sentence about the joy of parenthood in Tagalog - but it's too damn early.

Anonymous said...

We have traded off in the past with the baby business thing, but this time was ALL HIS FAULT. Just for the record.

blackbird said...

I knew that.

Anonymous said...

What exactly do the consumed grilled eels say about you? Do they use foul language?

Amblus said...

I will seriously DIE if you don't tell me what you thought about Napoleon Dynamite. I COULD GO AT ANY TIME.

palinode said...

Napoleon Dynamite: awessssome.