Return of the Fling -or- The Devil is in the Decals

Today I had to report to the Employment Commission for a "re-employment interview."
I thought that meant that I would have to provide all the contact info I had collected from my job search, but it turned out to be just a formality- all I had to provide was ID in order to update my contact info- they had an old address on file and some letters they sent never reached me. I spent days making sure that I had my Peas and Queues in order, but the Jobs Lady never even asked about that- I was given a few pamphlets with helpful job-seeking tips (Show up on Time! Wear Clean Clothes!) and dismissed a few minutes later.

The strangest thing about the visit was the location of the office itself. The new Virginia Employment Commission office is located in the old State Farm building where I used to work.
Today's interview took place in the very same cube that used to belong to my ex-drinking partner 'Lenore'; the actual cube walls and filing cabinets were all still in place, the cabs even had the State Farm tags on them.

I could swear that the cube still had a trace of Lenore's tangy musk on it; a blend of Orangina soda, Stolichnaya vodka and sex. I used to love that smell... I hadn't thought about her for a long time... right now I'm tempted to call her, but I won't.
It would end badly, again. Lenore was married.

Pictured above is the very cube where I started this blog in 2004. The photograph to the left of my monitor is of Voltairine de Cleyre, a 19th Century feminist, anarchist and poetess. I had a hopeless crush on de Clerye in 2004 - hopeless because she died in 1912. Some of my first posts are about her...it was, and still is, typical of me to have a hopeless, unrequited crush on a dead anarchist...

On the weekends I was usually alone in the building- sometimes Lenore would drop by and we'd go to the Cold Harbor Inn for beers and then go back to the office and fuck around. Other days I'd just sit and watch DVDs that I rented from the shop down the road. I've had worse jobs.

Today, there is a 'job-seeker' computer kiosk where my cube used to be and the area is bordered by the VEC reception area- it's not nearly as much fun as it was in 2004.

Speaking of no fun, I've decided that I'm not doing myself any favors by being publicly hopeful or optimistic about anything. Ever.
Every time I say that I think something good will happen, it doesn't. It's a pattern of jinx.

It wasn't long ago that I was blogging that I thought I had a job lined up; that I had also managed to sell some radio ads and that I had repaired my vehicle. I even speculated that my grandmother was to get out of the hospital in the near future. I also had some private hope that I was nurturing...

I was wrong about everything.
-The job at the music store fell through.

-My radio client balked at the last second.

-I paid a Volvo mechanic 85 bucks to diagnose my car's problems.
His advice?
"Drive it until it dies, which will be soon, then sell it for parts. "
It's a rare car, a 1990 Volvo 780, and the seats are worth more than the engine, which is worthless. If I sold the seats, I could pay for the engine repair, but then I'd have nowhere to sit. Fuckity.

-My grandma's parts are all worn out and it's impossible to find replacement parts for a 1920 Appalachian. She's a rare car, my Granma- and a tough one too- but the repairs she needs are likely to kill her- her heart is too weak for more surgery and for the last few weeks it's been a terrible rollercoaster- one day she sounds good, has color in her skin and a strong heartbeat, the next day she's unconscious and being given blood almost as quickly as she loses it. As long as she has recurring hemorrhages, she has to stay in hospital, and she's not gone two days in September without needing a transfusion. The docs have been quite frank with us- this year has been incredibly hard on her, she's too weak for much more and there isn't any good outcome possible, only the inevitable. It's just a matter of time.

Of course, she was given a similar prognosis in 1990...and '92...and '93...and '96...you get the idea.

As for my private hopes? They didn't work out ...sigh. Perhaps I'll call Lenore and see if she's divorced yet...nah.
That fling is flung.
It was a bit discomfiting sitting in her old cube though. I knew the appointment was in the same building, but in her cube- with all the same furnishings? Even the same decals? Unfair, says I.

I can smell her now. I'd better cut the cord on my telephone and fill the wall sockets with caulk because that thing is becoming mighty tempting...

Them Bones

A Picture

This plastic "horror" sign is a relic from the video room of the old comic shop. The adhesive strip on the back had long since dried and crumbled , so I propped it up on bottles of the prescription medicines I take in order to deal with daily life, thumbed the remote and took a snapshot.

Now What?

Yesterday I left work in a state of near-panic over a huge workload that had materialized from nowhere and had to be done by Friday morning, no ifs-ands-or-buts...when I got home I had a letter from a short-term employer waiting for me.

When I removed the letter, my mailbox fell off the wall of my building and clattered down the steps- the single short screw holding into the mortar had given way.

Fuck!

When I turned on the living room lamp, the bulb flashed once, brightly, and died.

Fuck!

So I went into the kitchen for another bulb and the kitchen light did the same thing. Poof!



Changing overhead lights in the dark sucks- I'm amazed I was able to do it without incident.

When I was finally able to produce enough light to read by, I opened my letter.
It was a check for $300 for a job I was already paid for in November- and I am almost exactly $300 short on this month's rent, so the timing on this could not be better...it's from a giant national company- I wonder if I was the only one who got a duplicate check?

Yay!

I can buy dinner! Except my car won't start when I leave the deli.
I just had it in the shop and was told it was OK, but now it won't start.

Fuck!

I eat a sandwich in my car and try again. It starts right up - and the gearshift backlight, which has never worked, is now glowing as it should.

Yay!

This morning I drove to work because I expected to be here until about 9 pm sorting out Lawyer Feces...but the 'emergency' isn't nearly as bad as was thought, so there's no panic.

Yay!

But I have to drive home in the snow and ice instead of taking the bus like I do every single day except the ONE day that we have icy roads.

Fuck!

Then our computer network crashed, so I couldn't do my work even if I wanted to.

Yay!

I can still go on-line , so I write a couple emails and decide to blog- but blogger is not working.

Fuck!

I read the news. It suffers from a paucity of cheer. Molly Ivins has died. I knew this already because I heard it on the radio on the way in- we were playing an Amy Goodman interview w/ Ms. Ivins and I heard a quote I loved and will paraphrase here:
(on the subject of the secret "Vast Right Wing Conspiracy")

"...of course there's no such thing as a secret VRWC-
they don't even pretend to hide their "Feed the Wealthy" agenda...all
you have to do is pay attention - they've been operating in the open for
decades and the American public just plain refuses to see
it...why bother hiding things from the blind?"

Hahaha- Vlad Putin says there is no 'conspiracy theory' at work in the death of a former KGB agent- the one who died of radiation poisoning- so how did that Polonium wind up in the spy's tea?

Fuck.

I don't need a headline or a hyperlink to know that BushCo is dead-set on going to war with Iran.
I've known that since 2002- Molly Ivins told me.

What she didn't say- because she couldn't have known at the time- is that we are in no position to engage Iran in a traditional military conflict. Our armed forces have been abused to the point of collapse- or coup.
In fact, we may not be able to defeat Iran in a 'traditional' war- and the current neo-Strangelovian buzz about 'tactical nuclear strikes' scares the hell out of me.

I'm not kidding.

Fuck.

Last Night's Missiles

The first thing I notice is the feel of a rubber band around my right ankle. It's on there to keep the baggy leg of my Army surplus trousers from getting caught in the chain of my Huffy 10-speed bike...
My vision clears just in time to swerve madly, barely missing a car that's parked in the middle of the road - it's facing the wrong direction, am I in England?



I stop, dismount, lean the bike against a tree that wasn't there ten seconds ago and walk over to the car.
It's a familiar model, something I've seen a million of but I can't quite place the name now.
It's got Maryland tags.
So I'm in Maryland, a glance inside the empty vehicle shows a Baltimore Sun newspaper folded neatly on the front seat. The large banner headline catches my eye and I reach in to grab the paper- holy shit!
The headline ,dated Sept 15, 1984, reads:

Missiles Launch at Midnight



Suddenly I remember that I'm in a real hurry to get home. Goddamnit, I sure wish they'd left the keys in the ignition.
I toss the paper back into the car, hop on the bike and zoom downhill. I've had this dream before and I know that my dreamyard has a really good view of the Apocalypse .
I don't want to miss the show.

Back up, hold on, wait a sec...OK, I'm back at the car and this time the keys are in it - as I said, I've had this dream before and I've learned to control parts of it.
Like the keys- I just wished for them and there they were...but I know somehow that driving isn't going to be so easy.
It's not- there's a mob of pedestrians and parked cars nearly blocking both lanes, HONK HONK HONK , no one budges or even looks, everyone is staring up at the sky between the trees, waiting for the missiles.

" Run them over"

What?

My Granpa is sitting next to me- how strange to see him in the passengers seat, Granpa was always driving. Granpa was not the sort of man to advise his grandson to run over pedestrians, this is a new twist. I'm losing my tenuous control over the dream.

"RUN THEM OVER!"

Granpa is mad. He was almost never mad. This scares me.

"But..." , I can't speak. I can't run over these people- look, some are just kids, some are old...
How can I do that?

"DO IT!"

I try to press the accelerator but my foot won't move.

"GO!"

The car rockets into motion and plows into the crowd, touching no one. The people are like water, displaced for a moment as we speed through, gradually filling in the space left in our wake, none the worse for our passage.

Hot Damn! Granpa will be so proud- he never did get to see me drive. I turn , beaming , to look at him but he's gone and I'm back on the bike, riding it up the dirt road to the little white farmhouse where I live during Missile Dreams.

There's a small crowd in the backyard, mostly gathered around the old brick BBQ grill- out of habit I guess, since there's no coals, no food, just some old leaves in the bottom that would make decent tinder if needed...I wonder where they came from- there are no trees nearby. That's why the view is so good from here.

Sara starts talking to me. I know a few Saras, but this woman is a stranger, I just know that she is a Sara, no H. It looks like she's been crying and I want to hold her but it's not my place to do that...so I try to listen to her instead.
Sara No H is worried about her boyfriend- he isn't answering his cell phone and it's almost midnight, where is he? As she tells me this, the people surrounding us start vanishing, but there's nothing to be done about that right now.

"Look", I explain, "it's 1985 and he doesn't have a cell phone-no one does- what are you talking into anyway?"

She pushes her long brunette hair back from where her ear used to be- Sara No H holds out her bloody hand, palm up.

There's something red and lumpy cupped in it.

"My knife", she says.

The sky goes bright yellow. It's missile time.

Above us there are twelve parallel columns of smoke rising into the sky, a tiny glowing dot at the head of each one.
They are already miles above us by the time the sound reaches us...the sound. Sound reaches our ears...all three of them. Oh God.

Sara! What have you done to yourself?

But she's not Sara anymore and it's OK for me to hold her now.

I whisper "I love you" into her ear and she is whole, there's no blood except what's in our hearts.

Together we watch the sky burn.