A Surprising Catch

It is with some surprise that I find myself in an area of work predominantly focused on men.  Not to correlate certain lines of work with a given sex, but it has been my experience that most of the contractors, subcontractors, material suppliers, fishermen, and boat owners that we deal with are male.  Almost all, in fact.  Like 96/4.

So how is it I became involved in this work?  And more importantly, how did I end up liking it so much?

I, who count among my favorite recreational activities manicures and shopping?  Who jump up and down in wild excitement with my girlfriends, squealing at a pitch that makes dogs howl.  Who focused my literary studies on feminist criticism, and wrote my senior thesis on Jane Austen, the ultimate in “chick lit,” for Christ’s sake!?

I always saw myself in some sort of work that benefited women, and I may get there yet.  But currently, as I pour over photos of a private residence with a sub, looking for defects in a drywall job, or investigate the current value of a hundred commercial crab pots for a Tillamook restaurant owner, I find myself getting really into it.

The ultimate in construction defects...

My boss has always said, “We do this for our clients.”  I always understood this on a practical level (I mean…duh), but never fully grasped the full meaning in my previous role.

Now, I am in contact with clients daily.  I find myself getting angry with them, furrowing my brown in concern for them, and rejoicing at a lucrative judgment with them.  In doing so, it seems almost as though the whole point of this job has come full circle.

I really have a soft spot for these maritime guys.  They come in, shifting uncomfortably in the office setting, the smell of the morning catch still fresh on their hands…  Or the construction guys, who care more about getting the job done than filling out paperwork.  (This is, incidentally, the main reason we even have a job.)

Don't try to take my boat.

These figures represent values that are being squeezed out of business practice today.  Local knowledge over global, the satisfaction for a job done well over financial opportunism…

Although I cannot let my tendency to romanticize get carried away.  These clients come with their fair share of problems and unpaid taxes.  And things can get pretty nasty when a group of retired coast men decide to buy a boat together to fish on the weekends, without one piece of written documentation surrounding their contractual agreement or payments made…

Even so, their professions and motives are something I am just beginning to learn about. Can’t wait to see what’s on the other end!

TV’s Bomb.com Women

I probably am not the best person to be writing this considering I follow approximately two shows religiously and fall asleep during the rest.  But I do appreciate bad-ass female characters, the likes of which join the ranks of Elaine Benes and Lisa Simpson.  Characters, in essence, that teach viewers that life without sycophantic devotion of a werewolf or a vampire can be more than a series of blank months.

Please welcome:

• LIZ LEMOOOOOOOOON!!!!!!!

My love for Liz Lemon runs deep. In part, I see much of myself in her, and the other part just aspires to be her.  Not only does she exhibit the unsubtle displays of awkwardness I try to conceal on a daily basis, but she actually pulls it off.  Balls to the wall.  She sings and dances, though she can’t really do either, and some remnant of her previous meal is invariably present on the front of her sweater vest.

She maneuvers through a predominantly male writing community and TV network with the opposite of grace, and still manages  to cling to the basis of her femininity.  Liz Lemon doesn’t become “one of the guys” so much as she makes “awesome awkwardness” part of what is inherently female.  She constantly exposes and plays off of gender stereotypes such as the blurry line between chivalry and equal rights, and women holding positions of power in the workplace (“They may take my dignity; but they will never take our straws!”).

Her 30 Rock company?  A hot, young secretary, Surree, and an attention-grabbing performer, Jenna, who in their own ways stump the more powerful men around them, but we’ve seen these before.  Liz Lemon adds a new dimension to the female character in the workplace by fetishizing the awkward and still keeping her cool. What the what?!?!

• SWEET DEE REYNOLDS

Dee from It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia is truly a breath of fresh air to the female character.  As an article I read in Bitch notes, so often women on TV are put in the position of being the “voice of reason,” pointing out to the helpless, pathetic men the errors of their ways and helping them clean the aftermath of their “thinking” hurricane.  Guilty as charged are any mom on television and and on occasion my beloved Liz Lemon herself.  But not Dee.  She gets right down in the grit, yelling, swearing, and drunkenly scheming along with her four male counterparts, whose attempts to undermine her backfire as a result.  If gender is blind towards the humor, then it stays so when its time to suffer the consequences.  Even though Dee is smokin’ the show does not rely on this caveat to excuse her downright stupid, but hilarious, behavior.  Who else can pull off getting with a high schooler who only wants alcohol? Ohhh Dee.

• BETTY DRAPER

Of all my choices, this is the most outlier.  Surely of the Mad [Wo]men Joan or Peggy stand out as the pioneers of the 60’s, enduring sexual onslaught and gender-biased slurs to secure women’s place in the professional environment.  I initially dismissed Betty Draper as the pretty face and devoted housewife, but was continually drawn to moments where she stepped outside the box in a way very uncharacteristic of her socio-economic class.  She walks on a higher beam, and thus has farther to fall for any misstep or misdirection.  More recently, she has taken a total leap of faith in leaving her husband and putting herself at the mercy of another man.  Her inability to accept the dissatisfaction in her life to the point of accepting potentially catastrophic consequences, is one of the ways her ballsy character still speaks to women today.  Besides, she has that Audrey Hepburn quality that makes you just want to stare at her face, and I would commit cold-blooded murder for her wardrobe.

Writing this has oddly enough made me want to get into more TV shows, and as I have a little X-mas vaycay coming in between jobs, I’d love to take your suggestions.  Apparently on a google search of “TV strong women” Dexter and Battlestar Gallactica come up with the most hits, so maybe I should check out those…

Holiday Cheer and the Holiday Card

The Holidays are upon us, an occasion which I find brings out the best and worst in most people.  On the one hand you have a magnanimous amount of charity and heartwarming displays of cheer.  Yet, almost as if the universe seeks to maintain a sense of equilibrium, this magical time also brings out a vile side of human nature.  This side appears in the hordes of frantic shoppers, clawing at each other’s eyes to get  that last stocked toy and making driving anywhere an absolute nightmare.  This is the unsung reality of the holidays, that renders the arrival of January and the ordinary so welcome.

Just yesterday I watched police cadets yell at children and shine flashlights at drivers while ushering foot and car traffic at Peacock Lane.   Granted that singular, energy-sucking street probably saw more awed pedestrians than it could handle, and it would take one skilled shepherd to herd that flock of light-bedazzled sheep, but still. The very purpose of this street’s existence is to harness holiday joy.  But don’t worry; somewhere beyond the exhausted electrical sockets, regretful homeowners, and angry police traffickers, it was there.  You could just make it out in bundled families and friends, enjoying a yearly tradition.

Another favorite of the holidays is the Christmas Card.  Although I have never sent a Christmas card, I always enjoy getting them and seeing what people have been up to throughout the year.  In reading them, however, I have observed a formula:

1)   As if the reader is not aware of the passage of time in its regular course, holiday cards typically begin with an one-liner akin to “Another year has come and gone.”  Truly there is nothing wrong with this, as every good introduction indicates its purpose; it just becomes comical.

2)   They follow a chronological order of the happenings of the year, which tends to relay given information as out of the ordinary when people run out of things to say, such as “Spring was rather rainier than previous years,” or “Lo and behold, the leaves fell around mid-September.”

3)    If you are lucky, they often contain the glory of the holiday card photo.  I love these, especially when they involve holiday puns or adorable children, but I particularly enjoy the awkward ones such as these from awkwardfamilyphotos.com.

Or…

I doubt my family would go for a onsie group photo, as much as this dismays me.

In spite of these wonderful regularities, I think the holiday card could benefit from a little re-vamping.  A friend alerted me to Dave Sedaris’ personal take on the holiday card, in which he recounts awkward family details such as drug use and teen pregnancy, all through the language of the holiday card.  I find this departure from the norm to be refreshing, as it eliminates the need to “read between the lines” to find out what’s really going on.

Thus, I give you my own variation of the holiday card.  Rather than boring you with my achievements over the past  year, I will instead relay what I did not do, what I wasted.  For sometimes it is the absences, those blaring little details that aren’t there, that indicate what’s up.  Plus, as I enjoy advertising myself as a “green” individual, I feel the need to be forthcoming about my globally unconscious practices.  I give you:

A Year In Waste:

• At seven drafts of an 80-page thesis, I wasted approximately 560 sheets of paper, just over a ream, all in the name of academic research and one Austenite’s nerdy fulfillment.
• And, I suppose, the months of March, April, and May were wasted on the research, writing, and defense the same.
• Defying nature, I moved back home after college in what started as an impermanent situation (Just for the summer… Just until I get a steady job…) and has now endured for seven months. And although I did move, it was moving on down (to the basement) in a somewhat depressing inverse of The Jefferson’s theme song.  But hey, here’s looking to 2010!
• In same vein as “life after college” , I find I was unable to hold a job for longer than three months.  Setting aside the extenuating circumstances which would make this statement appear less “sad” than it sounds, I have had three jobs over the course of the year and am starting a new one in 2010.
• While at work, there is a certain amount of down that is spent surfing the internet.  At approximately one collective hour of internet time per day, it seems I have wasted 140 hours of web time while at work.  Hmm, am now becoming more enlightened as to low job retainer rate…
• Gallons of gas wasted driving to and fro work; to and fro Eugene: approximately 15.
• Cups of coffee consumed to achieve and maintain some level of workable consciousness:  countless. (This is beginning to sound like a Mastercard commercial).

So there it is: a Marxian take on 2009.  And actually some accomplishments as well (did you notice how I slipped them in there?).  In 2010, I hope to waste reams upon reams of paper on pleading drafts, six months of intensive training, and two weeks of vacation at my new job.

Number of hours of less sleep spent writing this blog post: too tired to say…

Amber Alert!

It’s been a while since my last progress report, and much has changed.  From a low-paying job at a comparatively miserable environment over the summer (only redeemed by the fact that it was summer) to a wonderful, yet never carefree month of unemployment in the early fall, to a fun job proofreading and editing documents at a small firm, it had been quite a ride.

Except I'm not a monk.

And opportunity knocks again.  Just as I had settled into a routine of working full-time, going to gym classes, and having an almost ridiculous amount of fun on the weekends, my old boss contacts me with a possible paralegal position.  The job requires a significant increase in responsibilities including investigation, document crunching, writing, interviewing witnesses, and of course, the heart of it all, communicating with clients (and billing them…Gulp.)  Now bear in mind that none of these skills do I actually have at the moment, especially at the level required for the job, but for some unfathomable reason my former boss is willing to train me.  This would appear from a practical perspective to be a poor business decision on his part (since, and I repeat, I have no idea how to do this job), but his willingness to invest his time and money in me for the productivity he will get later shows a trust that I don’t want to disappoint.  It’ll take about six months before I am operating at full capacity, and I am excited/terrified for the challenge.

The bittersweet end of this saga is that I will be saying goodbye to one of the best professional environments I have ever had the fortune to work.  My matriarch pointed out the other day that this is the first business I have not found about a million things to complain about, and in mentally scanning through my various jobs from babysitting at age 12, to ice cream jobs, office jobs, tutoring jobs, random jobs, I realize this is quite true.

If I am ever to to run a business (oh god…), you better believe I will be taking several leafs if not photocopying verbatim the entire book of my current work.   As a small firm, they put the happiness of their employees as a prime business goal, and I do believe this investment shows in the work product.  Every day, I have had 10-15 different occasions to laugh out loud, and were talking an awkwardly embarrassing full-bodied cackle here.  Case in point:  Had to interrupt my boss’ telephone conference today only to hear, “No, I’m at the part where the vampires and werewolves are fighting…”

And as much as I enjoy holing up in my sweet-ass basement pad resplendant with space heater, knick-knacks, and books galore, I am now one step closer to moving out.  What with that, and great friendships both vintage and budding, things are looking good!

Portraits of Enigmatic Characters: Installment #1

By sheer luck and happenstance, I have had the fortune to come across some pretty wonky figures in my lifetime, and we’re not talking your average run-of-the-mill crazies either! Having spent my formative years in the counterculture corners of Portland, and my educative years in the hippie-rich environs of Eugene, I have met my fair share of interesting, intriguing, and downright offbeat individuals.  From the topless woman defiantly roaming about Eugene’s frigid winter to the anti-patriotic veteran freestyling about his dislike of police on 37th and Hawthorne, I name many of these figures as friends, and count myself among them depending on the day. They are part of what keeps Portland “weird,” and put the “spring” in Springfield.

Or, my favorite alternative, "Keep Portland Brewed"

That being said, there are some figures that are tougher to make out. People who are so obscene they are borderline socially-uncouth and their mere existence begs the question: Why are you the way you are, and how did you come to be this way?

In mentally browsing through my examples, I realize it is not so much that these individuals are crass, walking-apocalypses, so much as they masquerade under the façade of normalcy. As if in concealing their outlier properties, they come bubbling to the surface in frighteningly grotesque ways.

Thesis Tie-In: (since basically, similar to Gus in My Big Fat Greek Wedding who finds a Greek root to every word, I can tie my thesis into anything): stereotypes exist to exaggerate certain tropes of character that we see in day-to-day life, such that we can recognize them for what they are, and avoid getting caught up in their conventional trappings. Perhaps I am falling into the conventional trappings  in forming my impressions from limited exposures, but hopefully the exaggerations will recall similar figures in your own experience of wackos. (Woah, unnecessary thesis flashbacks…).

Disclaimer: Please understand that Amber Beyer is a lover of all creatures, great and small, and merely wishes to practice the art of character sketch.

Ms. Snowden

When you are a child, everyone seems weird.  This is partly because you are not used to how weird people truly are, but mostly because they get right down in your face, talk in an exaggeratedly slow rhythm, and over-emphasize their gestures.

This is ok from grade school ages 6 to 11. It is just downright annoying thereafter. And yet Ms. Snowden, our 7th and 8th grade music teacher, seemed to think that such childlike behavior was appropriate for her pubescent class of such “good little boys and girls!”  Naturally, we would just love to learn a 3-note version of Horse with No Name on the xylophone, and dance around with a white paper plate to Enya’s Sail Away (Orinoco Flow). Not kidding. This happened.

Allow me to give you a visual. A woman, barely 5’ in height, always wearing some awful color-coordinated turtleneck and long-skirt combination with sweat stains, and major nippage, forcing us to DANCE AROUND WITH A WHITE PAPER PLATE TO ENYA.  These activities are something that I now feel I would enjoy with great pleasure. But not when I am an awkwardly hormonal pre-teen, barely able to show my acne-ridden face in class due to the latest outbreak of pock-marks.

Please appreciate the humiliation of this.

As you can imagine, mockery of the entire situation was imminent.  And just as Ms. Snowden could delight in the good behavior of her “good little boys and girls,” she could also turn a 180, become a complete PSYCHO-BITCH.  She would even punish her “bad little boys and girls,” with methods far worse than dancing to Enya.  Almost like the world became a cartoon, Ms. Snowden’s eyes, bulging and bloodshot, would pop out of their sockets and take over as the predominant feature on her face.   Beyond the eyes, a vague electric field would manifest above her hair, crackling and sparking, ready to shock at a single touch. And she was not afraid of touch. Grabbing students behind the necks, she would wrench them across the room, or worse, into the hall for a “private talk.”

And yet, as though she could smell it coming, the moment the principal would round the corner, on her routine monitor of the halls, those terrifying eyes would rescind into the hollow sockets of her skull, the sweet falsetto voice would return, “Principal Brooown, welcome to music class!”  The transformation was spectacular.  Principal Brown, unaware that she was the acting Betty Ross to Ms. Snowden’s “Hulk ANGRY!” inquired as to our progress in the class. “I hope these older ones aren’t giving you too much trouble!”

“No no.” Her lilting laugh now packed an iron punch. Rounding one bulging eye upon a classroom of shaking students, “They’ve been such good little boys and girls…”

Next Installment: Rosie and Amber get verbally accosted for using the controversial phrase: “I don’t want to go to work tomorrow.”!

On Seeing a Movie

Now, typically I’m more of a words n’ language kind of gal, but I thought I’d deviate from the ole ball and chain to pay tribute to arguably the most popular, and certainly highest grossing, of all artforms: the motion picture.

Specifically, I refer to the experience of the movie theater.  Why do we even have these?  At its harshest, the movie theater requires you to pay $9.50 plus popcorn to sit before a screen for two hours while things flash across it and loud noises accost you from every angle.  Certainly, this is what some grandparents may tell you, ear plugs nestled deep into the bowels of their eardrums (?!).  Far better to run down to the nearest Blockbuster, rent the latest new release, and watch it from the privacy of your own home.

But this would be a tragedy.  Actually, it would be a tragi-comedy, because while you sit before your industry-standard TV trying to enjoy the film, (now that I’m ranting I feel pretentious enough to call it film. Yes, film-viewing is the prescribed pleasure for the evening), millions of movie-goers will be laughing at the mitigated nature of your experience.  Before heading off to the real thing.

The real thing is an experience in and of itself.  It is first, watching the movie, and second, the sensation of being in a theater, sitting before a digitally remastered screen, allowing the magnitude of it to wash over you and transport you elsewhere.

The movie-goer walks in, half-distracted, not quite sure what they are doing there (movies are rarely social, but rather a shared experience), to sit facing a single direction and wait.

Darkness descends, at once rendering anonymous, yet uniting–if only for a time–a  community of individuals who may share nothing outside of a shared desire for distraction, displacement, unadultered entertainment.  Perhaps you even came with someone; they are no longer there.  Attention is shifted from whatever is going on in the theater–beeps of cell phones being switched to silent, the dying down of murmurs–to the screen, the ethereal light, drawing its audience likes moths to a flame.

Thank you, Franz Ferdinand, for providing the perfect musical tie-in!

Under this cloak of darkness, the movie-goer falls into a well of profound loss.  All is forgotten in this brief charade when the viewer is open, receptive, and reverent.

And then you leave.  The credits roll, the lights up come up, shattering that safety blanket of darkness, bringing its audience to whatever harsh reality they momentarily escaped and depositing them back to the smell of popcorn and stickiness of spilled coke.

Roland Barthes, favorite critic who I probably constantly misquote, describes his experience with leaving the movie theater:

There is something to confess: your speaker likes to leave a movie theater.  Back out on the more or less empty, more or less brightly lit sidewalk, and heading uncertainly for some cafe or other, he walks in silence (he doesn’t like discussing the film he’s just seen), a little dazed, wrapped up in himself, feeling the cold–he’s sleepy, that’s what he’s thinking, his body has become something sopitive, soft, limp, and he feels a little disjointed, even irresponsible.  In other words, obviously, he’s coming out of hypnosis.

This hypnosis upon leaving the cinematic experience, dazed and blinded, rings true for several recent films, including Where the Wild Things Are, where I was poignantly reminded what childhood is like, and Inglorious Basterds, when I left the theater feeling wholly satisfied and like I wanted to scalp some Naaatzis, and, more unfortunately, the latest Indiana Jones, where I left just wanting my money back.  Yet all these experiences arose from the synergy of cinema in a way that merely watching them at home could not have.  It was the sum of the parts–the audience, the darkness, the screen, the sound–that allowed for a level of satiation typically not expected from guitless entertainment.

Now, after I have spent this post fetishizing the sensations of the cinematic experience, who wants to go see a movie?

Yurt-ing [yoort-ing]

–noun

1. From the Russian root yurta, meaning “home,” yurts were the traditional dwelling on the Mongolian steppes. For the city-tired youth, yurts provide refuge and a good time in the state parks along the Oregon coast. Ex. Let’s go stay in a yurt.
2. These portable homes accommodated the nomadic lifestyle of the Asian horse herders, as well as that of the noise-producing celebrant, who must make a stealthy getaway from cranky, safety-vest wearing camp hosts, often with a half-concealed bottle of Pendleton whiskey in hand while dodging the same.  Ex. We must not be loud after 10 p.m. in or around the yurt.
   

–adjective

1. Of or pertaining to the qualities of the yurt, including but not limited to:

• an unsealed wooden floor that soaks in beer among various other liquids;
• canvas encasement that makes only the allusion of containing sound; and
• topped with a nipple-resembling window whose magical qualities turn apparent trees into the Milky Way Galaxy.
• Ex.  That structure is very yurt-like in nature.

–verb

1. The act of staying in a yurt, and all subsequent activities related thereto. These include:

• swimming in various states of undress across a lake;
• rolling haphazardly down all sides of a sand dune;
• informing an entire campground of Cosmo’s “in the bedroom” tips;
• concocting creamsicle-tasting poison cups.
• Ex. Let’s go yurting every weekend.

Etymology:  Originally from the Turkic word referring to the imprint left on the ground by a removed yurt.  It’s safe to say that whether through an entire recycling bin of glass bottles, two bundles of firewood burned, hundreds of footprints left in the sand, or various stains on the yurt floor, nine city-dwellers left their mark on Florence, Oregon. And had a damn good time in the process.

Also see:  backpacking, overnight camping, drinking.

Stranger than Friendship

Greg Mortensen, international humanitarian and Nobel Prize hopeful, used a unique kind of friendship in his mission to build schools in the Eastern reaches of Pakistan.  His book Three Cups of Tea describes a process of coming to know someone that may seem a bit accelerated.

As the village chief of the Karakoram Mountains states:

Here, we drink three cups of tea to do business: the first you are a stranger, the second you become a friend, and the third, you join our family, and for our family, we are prepared to do anything–even die.

While the concept of taking a bullet for someone after your third coffee date comes off as a bit strong, it has the appeal of fierce loyalty, and one wonders how our multi-billion dollar business transactions would fare if we operated under the same principle.  Hem…corporate bailout…hem.

The circumstances that bring people together are so wide and varied that it’s a wonder we use such a blanket term: friendship, to encompass its many manifestations.  In some ways, it’s nice that the idea of friendship is non-discriminating, but it also homogenizes such a subtly intricate idea.  Certain friendships allow for a level of intimacy otherwise unwarranted, an intimacy brought about by circumstantial rarity.

One such friendship that comes to mind is the passing traveler.  The spontaneity, yet syncopation of this encounter is enough to make one open up, even share “deep shit” with a complete stranger.  My first experience with this particular brand of friendship was when I was 15, and took a Greyhound bus from Bend to Portland.  Being an angsty, anti-social teen, I deliberately placed my backpack in the seat next to me.  I never thought I would meet anyone not drunk or high on a Greyhound, but miracles can happen, and did when a 23-year-old fella from Minnesota pointedly stood above me, forcing me to clear the seat.  While the first few minutes passed in disgruntled silence and every attempt to ignore each other, the gods of friendship were at play, for the bus lurched just as he snapped open a coke, causing a wave of it to spill onto my lap. A wonderful friendship began.  I don’t recall what exactly we discussed nonstop for six hours, but I do recall, as I left the bus and climbed into my mom’s car, feeling sad that I would never see this individual ever again.

The traveler friend is a circumstantial gift.  It defies age, race, sex, and any other demographic. I met this type of friend last year while throwing back pints with Aussie adventurers, dining top dollar with over-protective couples, and hiking alongside talkative English blokes.  Like the cowboys of the spaghetti Westerns, the traveler friend appears only when he is needed. He saves the day, along with debilitating bouts of homesickness, and rides off into the sunset, never to be seen again, usually with some trite one-liner like, “Keep yourself dry, kid.”

I recall, after my first few lonely days in Spain, nervously inquiring of a Kiwi if he wanted to see flamenco at the Alhambra with me.  His response was so perfect, I remember it verbatim: “I mean, we probably should, right? We’re in fucking Granada.”  Thus, a night of pathetically moping in my bunk turned into a night of clashing heels, red flowers, cante jondo, shooting stars, and yummy sangria. We tripped down the uneven streets on our way home, exchanging life stories. The night ended anticlimactically with an awkward: “Well, nice knowing ya!  Happy travels!”  when what I really wanted to say was “Thank you for staving off my loneliness. I feel like I know you better than many of my friends.”

It is these brief snatches of intimacy, which arise more from a need within the self coinciding spontaneously with another, that allow us to drop our guard in a way we normally wouldn’t. As unsettling as these friendships end, they are proof that any two people can connect in a place if the circumstances are right. Unless, you’re like..an asshole.

Another interesting friendship that comes to mind defies all human logic and genetic predisposition. That’s right, folks, I am talking about the platonic friendship between a fully-functioning heterosexual male and female.  Some question whether this can even exist.  Some flush it out into to witty, award-winning movie screenplays, as is the case with my favorite chick flick When Harry Met Sally.

oh shit oh shit oh shit oh shit

Harry, loveable man that he is, maintains that men and women can never be friends because “the sex part always gets in the way.”  What Harry is saying is not that men and women can’t be friends, but that it is an invalid question. It’s like asking what time the Universe was created.  It just doesn’t work because the answer negates the original intent of the question.

And I would wager that some part of it is true for most of us.  Who hasn’t had fleeting mini-crushes on their opposite-sexed friends at one time or another? It’s because they exhibit all the qualities of a good friend i.e. supportive, trustworthy, etc., but also have a different chromosomal pairing.  Fortunately, for most of us, the louder voice cannot even fathom going there, leaving us in a strangely platonic, but not entirely asexual limbo, that in some ways, is more comforting because it will never go away. At least not in its original context.

Finally, since I’m so tired I can barely keep my eyes open, I’ll just say: Shout-out to friendships, YEAH!, and do a real ending later.

Scene One. Take Two.

Having now been at a new job for two weeks, I have begun to notice some differences between a positive work environment and a miserable one.  True, I am probably still wrapped up in the idealism of a new beginning, but these differences are so blaring (i.e. people are actually happy), that it is impossible to not take notice.  Here are some of the reasons why:

• Now, I don’t know about you, but I respond very well to positive reinforcement. Give me a compliment and I will follow you around like a love-sick puppy.  I fully recognize what is going on here: like a Pavlovian dog, I am being conditioned to drool at the possibility of positive recognition for a job well done.  It is the easiest form of behavior control; parents have been employing it for ages, and really it’s so effective, I don’t know why more companies don’t give their employees a big “You’re Swell!” memo on a daily basis.  So when the bosses pass my desk, stop, and tell me what a great job I’m doing and how happy they are to have me there, I walk around with a dumb smile on my face. Not only that, but I try all that much harder with the next task. It’s a little something I would call “mutually-beneficial.”

• Another major component of a positive working environment is office humor.  Never again will I underestimate the value of a good prank to make the day go faster.  Yesterday saw a co-worker running down the hall wielding two staplers as guns, shooting at random with a take-no-prisoners intensity. I am still just new enough to feel uncomfortable with unleashing the full force of my personality, which can be the equivalent of a social suicide, but give me a couple more weeks and it is on. I have in my arsenal a very ironic sense of humor and five seasons of The Office to get material.  I may laugh politely now, but I am ready to bring it.

• The best part of a happy office are the perks.  Casual Fridays, muffins in the morning, all things that seem relatively minor, but put a little extra bounce in the step when entering the building. Oh, and did I mention, FREE DOWNTOWN PARKING!  Now, not only do I drive a gas-guzzling, war-initiating clunker (tho I love my car!), but I drive it all the way to work and back, along a route positively teeming with public transportation options.  I am the least “green” Oregonian out there. But it cuts my commute in half, and I get to rock out to whatever music I want along the way, so I’ll take it.

Nooooo! Don't take away our perkssss!

From this, you may surmise that I am very happy at my present situation, and you would be correct.  As cliche as it is, I am aware my main message here is that sometimes the little things are what counts, but in this case, it also hits the hammer on the proverbial head.

The Underwood 2000 (Not unlike the Nimbus 2000)

You know that heady rush of excitement you feel after a good purchase? That feeling that the stars are aligned and everything in the world will be alright simply because you have made, if not shrewd or economic, a very sound investment?  (Beginning to realize I may have a problem…)

Some people feel this way about cars. Others get it over clothes, or accessories, or even food. I apparently feel it about vintage typewriters.

That being said, there is someone I would like you to meet… His name is Underwood. 11” tall and 25 lbs.  Like a proud mother, I clasp my typewriter unto me, boxy shape and all, proud to show off my latest acquisition.

Isn't he beautiful?

Nobody better mess with my typewriter on the playground.  My typewriter will always have the best paper-bagged lunches, and someday, I hope to be known as a MILF among my typewriter’s little typewriter friends.

(Step back.) Don’t worry. I am just as disturbed as you (hopefully) are by this upwelling of maternal instinct concerning my latest purchase.  And yet it asks a question I am sure pertains to more than just myself:  What’s the appeal of old things?

I suppose, in a pre-fallen Rome sort of way, it appeals to the glory of the not-forgotten past.  Composed as it is of nobs and levers poking out at awkward angles,  I find myself associating my typewriter with the “good ole days” of industrialism.  With a time of steam engines and locomotives and the Rooooooaring 20’s!

For a reading/writing person, the typewriter must be the object through which I can idealize about the past.  For with each satisfying click as the type bar strikes the paper or the ding as the reel reaches the end, I hear the noises of a time when things worked well (until October 24, 1929 that is).

If I may get all philosophical on your asses for a moment, critic/philosopher/genius dude Roland Barthes dubs this sound “the rustling.”  And although he applies it specifically to language, the idea of a sound working well, positing meaning, and generating happiness is sort of what the noise of the typewriter does to me.  I can think back before the laptop sounds of monitors whirring, fans cooling, and hard-drives clicking to the harsher, and yet in some ways endearing, sounds of its predecessor.  As the “listener” I cannot evaluate the sound itself, but merely self-reflect on my reaction to the experience.*

*These ideas appear in “The Rustle of Language” by the late great Roland Barthes, and without the dedicated tutelage of UO’s very own Professor Forest Pile (misspelling intentional), I would not have been able to understand them.

In addition to the sounds, I am drawn to the physical immediacy of my typewriter.  What confidential documents, love letters, or important briefs saw their way through its reel? In all likelihood, my typewriter sat in an office producing mundane file memos all day, but that’s beside the point. For all I know, it drafted the repeal to prohibition.

Or better yet, is a movie star!  I can just picture the news people from His Girl Friday typing away, threatening the speed they can talk with their pre-carpal tunnel hands.

Skip forward to 2:15 for best effect.

Whatever feats, great or mundane, my typewriter witnessed, I give it the unconditional affection of any doting parent.  And once I replace the ribbon and trouble-shoot for other errors, I shall post its first steps (typed pages) for you all to see.

(Trouble-shoot, error, post…? I am hopelessly a product of the digital age.)