Gloom Suit and Nausea 2005

I'm ashamed that I can find the time to complain about my insignificant life.
Numbness is setting in.
No, that's not true.
I wish numbness would settle in.

Today started badly. I slept in my Gloom Suit last night. It's all wrinkled when I get up, but I lack the will to change it.
So I shower in it and go to Mortgage School. I'm soggy with gloom.
I dread this. Each day is worse than the previous one -maybe it is the same one.
How can one tell?
What a fun schedule : We have part two of Flood Insurance andPolicy Training. It involves yet another fucking binder full of wasted paper. I don't even bother opening it. I open 'Paint' instead.
Random bits of color appear, fail to please me, and are banished.
Repeat. I start drifting away.

I hear my name. It's Teacher and she sounds a bit cross. Could I please open my book to page this or that and tell the class where to look for various bits of data on a Flood Determination form. Why bother with the book? Just tell me what vendor we ordered the Determination from and I will tell you exactly where to look.

Ok, she says, it's from Company X. Where is the order number and date?

Lower right corner. It'll be a three-digit number, a hyphen followed by a four digit number , another hyphen and a four-digit number with either a J or a D at the end. J means it was sent from their Jacksonville office, D is for Dallas. The order date is directly under it.
I'm showing off.
(I've seen thousands of these easily read utilitarian documents. Maybe tens of thousands).

She looks at her book. I'm spot-on.

Well, OK.

At lunchtime, I go upstairs to see if my bestest work buddy wants to grab some lunch. Where is she? I ask another work-pal. Where's my buddy?

She got fired yesterday.
Huh? She was the best temp they had They just offered her a "real"job. Everyone likes her. Fired?
Turns out that The Bank discovered she had bounced a check in 1999. She was 21 at the time. ( $36, I find out in an email)
This turns my sour mood into curdled milk. Curdled milk reminds me of our suck-ass Company Cafeteria. Maybe they'll have something good today.
They don't, so I throw some vaguely green shit into a styrofoam bowl and call it a salad. Yum.

I sit with some class-mates. I know that they aren't bad people , but today I loathe them. One of them had just interviewed for a spot in the next City Police academy. He tells me he was asked if he was capable of taking a life. His deep, empty eyes indicate that he awaits my comment.

Well, I explain, as an Existentialist (I'm not) , I realize that life is inherently meaningless and we are lost and alone in a hostile world with nothing but our own will to sustain and protect us-in this context, killing another person is a pointless yet life-affirming action.

I look around me. I'm surrounded by people so burdended by petty bullshit that they don't even realize they exist.
They look at me like I'm crazy.

I hear Cop Boy spewing some humanist blather, his sincerity makes me feel ill. I'm clutching a plastic spork in my right hand. Only an excercise of will prevents me from using it to gouge his eye out. His sincerity blinds him to his narrow brush with monocular vision.

I throw my plastic untensil into my styrofoam dish.
It doesn't rattle.

Back to class. We are taking a Flood Test. It's 8-parts and we have 4 hours to complete. I'm done before most of the class has even logged in. I score 98.
Teacher asks to speak to me outside.

She's trying to find a way to accuse me of cheating. No one can finish Flood Test in 15 minutes.
How did I do that?
I tell her that I used to process Flood claims for a living. I refrain from telling her that FEMA hasn't been worth a fuck since it fell under the Homeland Security umbrella, but I guess we all already know that by now.

Anyway, we talk a bit and both loosen up a little, which is nice. She says I can leave early and still get my hours-just don't tell anyone. I tell her I'm going to post it on the internet. She thinks I'm kidding.

Cool. This evening,I've got a phone interview to record for one of the DJ's. I'll have extra time to get ready. I need some pointers from SuperMax on recording from the phone line, so this is well-timed.
I get to the station. Aaaahh...I love this place. I really do. It's my escape from corporate Hell. My cocoon.

Hey Max, could ya spare a few minutes- I need to set up for a phone interview.
Sure.
The phone tap in the Production room is missing. Huh?
We can't find it anywhere, but we notice that a number of other expensive items are missing.

Our Sanctuary has been violated. I have to tell my host we can't do the interview. She has to call her subject and explain. I hate this.
This was our Good Thing and someone we trusted has gone and fucked it all up.

I feel sick.