On the subway this evening I got hit on by a rich guy. His name was Serge and he worked in a bank.
Maybe it wasn't a bank, but it was something financial. He worked at King and Yonge—my milieu of yore—and did something involving charts and graphs and tables of numbers. I know because he showed me them. And then he said, "I'm not bullshitting you—this is really what I do."
He told me several times that he worked in finance. He told me about how he had two bachelor's degrees, one MBA, and was working on getting his CFA. After he got that, he said, he would go back to school and get a second master's in finance. "I want to be more competitive," he told me, "so that I can get a nice seven-figure salary." He said this several times—the part about the seven-figure salary, that is. I wondered if perhaps he'd meant to say six, but I didn't bother asking.
Then he gave me his business card and told me to email him sometime. "I might do that," I said, politely. To which he replied, "If you do, I just might respond."
I briefly toyed with the idea of contacting him. In a world of careful image construction, you've got to respect someone who wears his toolishness on his sleeve. I'm quite sure he would make a show of taking me somewhere lavish, and, you know, I don't mind putting out for a free meal.
But, not surprisingly, I decided against it. I would have a lot more casual sex if I didn't dislike people so much. I am far too misanthropic for a life of sin.
09 July 2008
06 July 2008
AMZB vs. Disease/Self-Pity
[Copied over from facebook for consistency.]
My great achievement of the day is not blowing chunks. For the second time in two weeks, I am facing an epic battle against nausea, dizziness, and fever.
Feeling sick gives you lots of time not to do the work you're being paid to get done by Tuesday. Instead, you get to hang out by the toilet (in case you should need it in a hurry) or else lie down because you feel weak and dizzy.
Since both these things are a little boring, I eventually needed a little entertainment. So I allowed myself to get sucked into an online conversation with a friend of mine. The gist: he's fucking someone boring, irritating, and stupid. Having woken up to her faults, how can he now get rid of her?
I could sympathize with him. You misjudge someone initially, and then whoops, a few months later you're miserable. You need to end it, but every way out requires that you be an asshole. There's no way to reject someone nicely. So do you break it off now or later?
This is a really fun conversation to have when you can easily imagine someone saying the same shit about you. Got me thinking about my persistent sense of intellectual inferiority within my own social group. About the disconnect that seems to exist between me and other people. About the termtime sense of isolation/alienation that I can't seem to shake.
So I decided to throw a pity party. Location: the bathroom. Invitees: my sense of self-worth, the bile rising at the back of my throat. Fun-filled activities: pin the vomit on the toilet, hide and go freak.
In the end I didn't throw up, but I was left once again with the feeling that I need to prove my worth to the world. Also perhaps to myself. Unsure how to do that. I can't think of anything in my life that I am currently proud of.
In order to feel better about myself, I decided to play a few rounds of Prolific, currently my online boggle-like word game of choice. I wanted to feel like there was something—even something fairly useless—that I could do well. I played six rounds with people whose ratings were lower than mine. I lost every time.
I think the only possible thing I could do to feel more pathetic right now would be to broadcast my momentary sense of self-pity to tons of people on the internet. It would be shameless and incredibly tacky. Good thing I'm not doing that.
My great achievement of the day is not blowing chunks. For the second time in two weeks, I am facing an epic battle against nausea, dizziness, and fever.
Feeling sick gives you lots of time not to do the work you're being paid to get done by Tuesday. Instead, you get to hang out by the toilet (in case you should need it in a hurry) or else lie down because you feel weak and dizzy.
Since both these things are a little boring, I eventually needed a little entertainment. So I allowed myself to get sucked into an online conversation with a friend of mine. The gist: he's fucking someone boring, irritating, and stupid. Having woken up to her faults, how can he now get rid of her?
I could sympathize with him. You misjudge someone initially, and then whoops, a few months later you're miserable. You need to end it, but every way out requires that you be an asshole. There's no way to reject someone nicely. So do you break it off now or later?
This is a really fun conversation to have when you can easily imagine someone saying the same shit about you. Got me thinking about my persistent sense of intellectual inferiority within my own social group. About the disconnect that seems to exist between me and other people. About the termtime sense of isolation/alienation that I can't seem to shake.
So I decided to throw a pity party. Location: the bathroom. Invitees: my sense of self-worth, the bile rising at the back of my throat. Fun-filled activities: pin the vomit on the toilet, hide and go freak.
In the end I didn't throw up, but I was left once again with the feeling that I need to prove my worth to the world. Also perhaps to myself. Unsure how to do that. I can't think of anything in my life that I am currently proud of.
In order to feel better about myself, I decided to play a few rounds of Prolific, currently my online boggle-like word game of choice. I wanted to feel like there was something—even something fairly useless—that I could do well. I played six rounds with people whose ratings were lower than mine. I lost every time.
I think the only possible thing I could do to feel more pathetic right now would be to broadcast my momentary sense of self-pity to tons of people on the internet. It would be shameless and incredibly tacky. Good thing I'm not doing that.
27 June 2008
Defensiveness
Teeth bared, growling, I feel as though I have something to prove. Amidst a community of movers and shakers, I am merely trembling.
It seems these days that everyone is trying to change the world. I have never thought myself capable of that. Why I am not trying: despair, laziness. (Are they perhaps the same thing?)
How can I say to the world: My existence is worth your notice. I have ideas and thoughts too, even if they are on a smaller scale than yours. My experience is real. I am real. I may not be trying to save the world, but I am watching it like you are. You are watching the big things. I am watching the small things.
It seems these days that everyone is trying to change the world. I have never thought myself capable of that. Why I am not trying: despair, laziness. (Are they perhaps the same thing?)
How can I say to the world: My existence is worth your notice. I have ideas and thoughts too, even if they are on a smaller scale than yours. My experience is real. I am real. I may not be trying to save the world, but I am watching it like you are. You are watching the big things. I am watching the small things.
01 June 2008
Why I Want to Post but Never Do
It is a problem of translation. I have lost the ability (if I ever had it in the first place) to translate my thoughts into words. To translate my thoughts into thoughts. To transform a vague, instinctual sense of importance into quantifiable, measurable thought-units. To break down the whirling into elements that my rational mind can understand. To untangle the matted mental hairball into recognizable strings of thought.
I don't have time and I can't be bothered. In the next few days, before I can write or think or tackle the tangle in my mind, I must:
packboxesfactchecksaygoodbyesweepcleanhavemeetingswrapthingsup
But I would rather sit alone and think. Too many thoughts are waiting to form. I want to let them.
I don't have time and I can't be bothered. In the next few days, before I can write or think or tackle the tangle in my mind, I must:
packboxesfactchecksaygoodbyesweepcleanhavemeetingswrapthingsup
But I would rather sit alone and think. Too many thoughts are waiting to form. I want to let them.
06 May 2008
16 April 2008
Mixed Metaphors
My house is full of stinging things. Wasps and hornets, poison ivy, ants wherever I turn. Through dinner I rub myself with nettles till my skin turns raw and red. I eat spiders for lunch and they bite me on the way down. I scratch and itch and shudder and twitch, but still with zeal I expose myself to irritants.
I have been trying to remove stressors from my life. I have been lopping them off like so many gangrenous limbs. But is it too late? The poison has got to my blood and it swirls around in my body. How did a stubbed toe turn into this?
One metaphor ran out of steam so I switched to another. The beautiful thing about blogging is that I can write poorly if I damn well want to.
I have been trying to remove stressors from my life. I have been lopping them off like so many gangrenous limbs. But is it too late? The poison has got to my blood and it swirls around in my body. How did a stubbed toe turn into this?
One metaphor ran out of steam so I switched to another. The beautiful thing about blogging is that I can write poorly if I damn well want to.
04 April 2008
April Is the Cruellest Month
Daytimes are all right once you're up and moving. There is the delight in daily things, in things you learn and foods you eat and people you see. Every few minutes brings a tiny surge of excitement that propels you forward, so that you jerk onwards through the day in spurts and sprints that flag only when you run out of novelties. Then you have nothing left to react to, nothing external that'll squat in the rooms of your mind. Instead your insidious thoughts ooze up through the floorboards and under the door.
This is evening. The energy has not yet run out but the happiness has. The fresh flow of delight is curdled by a growing awareness of your own faults. There is the agitation, the racing thoughts, the struggle to get through the evening intact. The daily fight of your body versus your mind. Sometimes your mind wins. Your body's best tactic is to go to sleep.
You wake to the hollow inertia of despair. You wake early because you slept early, having decided that sleep was less harmful than anything else you might do. You lie in bed in the morning for maybe one hour, maybe three. Sometimes you don't get up at all.
You never do anything much because you are never calm enough for thinking. Even your daytime excitement is a crazed sort of agitation that you can barely control. You wonder, in those despairing morning hours, whether there's anything you can do to fix this. You think not. How can you eliminate turmoil when everything in the world is a trigger?
This is evening. The energy has not yet run out but the happiness has. The fresh flow of delight is curdled by a growing awareness of your own faults. There is the agitation, the racing thoughts, the struggle to get through the evening intact. The daily fight of your body versus your mind. Sometimes your mind wins. Your body's best tactic is to go to sleep.
You wake to the hollow inertia of despair. You wake early because you slept early, having decided that sleep was less harmful than anything else you might do. You lie in bed in the morning for maybe one hour, maybe three. Sometimes you don't get up at all.
You never do anything much because you are never calm enough for thinking. Even your daytime excitement is a crazed sort of agitation that you can barely control. You wonder, in those despairing morning hours, whether there's anything you can do to fix this. You think not. How can you eliminate turmoil when everything in the world is a trigger?
08 March 2008
Rejection?
You walk into the room sporting a burgundy five-buttoned vest over a crisp white shirt. You balance your serving tray in one hand and approach the nearest group of dazzling jet-setters. Offering it to them, you say, "Would you care for some pussy?"
"Oh, you must try the cunt, dear, it's delightful!" exclaims a fat and bejewelled one to her balding husband.
"Darling, I couldn't possibly. I had three pieces of it earlier and I'm positively stuffed."
The greasy man to his right says, "They look just scrumptious." You wait patiently while he hesitates over the fresh, quivering vulvae, his bulbous fingers poised in the air. You get your hopes up. Finally: "You know, I really shouldn't. These days I'm watching my weight."
Onto the next bunch you go, holding up the offering each time. It is not a very popular dish. Every once in a while, someone will say, "All right, I'll give it a try, if you insist," and half-heartedly select a juicy morsel. But most of the time they do not. It is a disheartening task, and the routine, the repetition, the predictability becomes tedious.
You begin to wonder if you are catering to the wrong crowd or if the dish itself is merely unappealing. Could you do something differently next time? Add a little salt or some lemon zest? Rosemary, perhaps?
"Oh, you must try the cunt, dear, it's delightful!" exclaims a fat and bejewelled one to her balding husband.
"Darling, I couldn't possibly. I had three pieces of it earlier and I'm positively stuffed."
The greasy man to his right says, "They look just scrumptious." You wait patiently while he hesitates over the fresh, quivering vulvae, his bulbous fingers poised in the air. You get your hopes up. Finally: "You know, I really shouldn't. These days I'm watching my weight."
Onto the next bunch you go, holding up the offering each time. It is not a very popular dish. Every once in a while, someone will say, "All right, I'll give it a try, if you insist," and half-heartedly select a juicy morsel. But most of the time they do not. It is a disheartening task, and the routine, the repetition, the predictability becomes tedious.
You begin to wonder if you are catering to the wrong crowd or if the dish itself is merely unappealing. Could you do something differently next time? Add a little salt or some lemon zest? Rosemary, perhaps?
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