Funemployed!
Michael was silly enough to write this on 10 March 2010, and will diligently file this under N'importe quoi
I woke up this morning, and Vinny was gone (he was in the shower), and I thought, shit, he left without me. But then, he would have left without me because I was laid off on Monday, and I don’t have to go to work anymore. The Secret works.
I called in sick on Monday; I had a migraine that would kill an ox; not the first time. The headaches have been more frequent in the last couple of months, and I haven’t figured out why, although I’m thinking they were because of my job. I checked my e-mail, and was going to send an e-mail to everyone telling them that I was out sick that day. Instead, I found a message announcing a mandatory company meeting at 9:30 a.m. Oh, wow. The last time we had one of those, they announced layoffs. So I sent a message to K and J and asked them to let me know what was going on. Then I went back to bed.
A couple hours later, I woke up and checked my work e-mail. No responses. Then I noticed that my e-mail was frozen because my inbox was full, and now that I think about it, it was a weird coincidence that my e-mail inbox was full and blocked the day that I was laid off, or was it a coincidence? So I sent a couple e-mails from my gmail account, and I got replies really fast. One of them said that there were indeed reductions: 270 people, 40% of the staff. Whoa. That’s massive. Then I called the VP, and the first thing he said was, you were part of the reduction, and you need to call HR. I don’t think I’ve ever dismissed a VP before, and certainly not as fast as I did him. He was all like, sorry, not a reflection on you, I wish you the best, yadda yadda, and I’m like, save it, get me out of here. I was literally waving my hand at thin air in my room like he was standing in front of me and I was shooing him away. I wanted to find out what I had to do next, not hear something insincere and canned. I’m so turning into my mother.
I went in to work yesterday to sign the papers and find out what the whole package was about. It was the first and last time I’d ever been to Bldg. 249. It was my last day at work. The package is nice. I’m on paid administrative leave and on full payroll and benefits until May, at which time I will become unemployed. Later this summer I’ll receive a severance check, my stocks will vest, and I’ll have a tight little sum of money to stash away. And there’s always unemployment benefits, too. I should be able to max out the benefit. And if I do it right, I should be fine for a while.
Seriously, this is weird. I haven’t been unemployed since 2003, and even then it was only a couple of months. I always have a job. I’m always working. I haven’t been laid off since 1995. I always leave on my own, I never wait to be laid off or fired. But this time, even though I knew my job sucked, quitting with nothing else in my favor would have sucked worse. I wouldn’t have the paychecks or the severance or the unemployment. I made a choice to stay in a shit job until the company decided what to do with me. I decided to let them make the move. I was patient, and I was going stir crazy.
I have to find something creative to do with my time. I have to find a purpose again. And that’s great. For so long, I’ve been stuck in a job I hated and which didn’t even need me, and now I’m free. I think it’s time to move on from biotech and do something more interesting, more fun. What, I have no idea, but we’ll find out. I’ve got plenty of time.
So, next up, $32 million. Nice round number. And why not? What do you say, Universe?
The Friday Random Ten: The Blackout Edition
Michael was silly enough to write this on 26 February 2010, and will diligently file this under Friday Random
- “Not an Angel” — Basia — London Warsaw New York
- “Lost Time” — Maria Taylor — Lynn Teeter Flower
- “Bad” — Michael Jackson — Number Ones
- “Stopwatch Hearts” — Delerium — Chimera
- “Through the Glass Darkly” — Annie Lennox — Songs of Mass Destruction
- “Honky Tonk Hiccups” — Neko Case and Her Boyfriends — The Virginian
- “Let’s Go Crazy” — Prince — Purple Rain
- “Fifteen” — Taylor Swift — Fearless
- “Sing Me Spanish Techno” — The New Pornographers — Twin Cinema
- “Gone Are the Days” — Mirah — (A)spera
I live in San Francisco, and I work in South San Francisco: one a very cosmo, metropolitan city; the other the birthplace of modern biotech. And yet, we have the most delicate and unstable electrical system. If the wind blows just right, the lights go out. If it rains, transformers blow up, and the lights go out. One giant WTF.
The Friday Random Ten — The Procrastination Edition
Michael was silly enough to write this on 19 February 2010, and will diligently file this under Friday Random
- “Overnight Observation” — ONJ — Soul Kiss
- “Circles” — Captain & Tennille — Why do they always pop up? As if my silly Friday meme isn’t cheesy enough…
- « Juste une étoile » — Isabelle Boulay — Nos lendemains
- “Alright” — Jamiroquai — Traveling Without Moving
- “If We Could Start Over” — Celine Dion — Unison — OMFG, she’s on her way back to Vegas!!
- “Wishing You Were Here” — Chicago — Chicago IX — Chicago’s Greatest Hits
- “The Captain and the Kid” — Jimmy Buffett — Boats
- “She’s the One” — Saint Etienne — Foxbase Alpha
- “Outside Looking In” — Mary Chapin Carpenter — Stones in the Road
- “Waltz (Better than Fine)” — Fiona Apple — Extraordinary Machine — Where did you go, Fiona? Come back to us!
Is it really Friday? Every day this week, I woke up thinking it was another day. Today I woke up a 6:45 a.m. thinking it was Saturday, and I haven’t finished my paper for my Sociology class yet. My heart raced a little until I convinced myself that it was really Friday … and I had to go to work on top of that. I love four-day work weeks, but sometimes they fuck with my head.
We didn’t have class last Saturday because of the President’s Day holiday, so it’s been two weeks that I have had this assignment. These reaction papers are really a piece of cake to write, especially since I love writing and I miss it a lot. I’m eager for the next assignment and topic. I mean, give me a topic and I can go all narrative on it for pages. But if it’s an assignment, I will invariably wait until the last minute to write it. I’ve started writing papers early in past, but they were always strained and kinda bland. Then, as the deadline approached, I was filled with a kind of inspiration and I wrote something infinitely better … and keep in mind that “infinitely better” is relative. I will never be a Kurt Vonnegut or a Neil Gaiman, but I know I can craft a paper when I have to. And now that it’s officially recognized that I’m bored at work, I feel less guilty about using my six-and-a-half hours in the office as my homework time.
Performance
Michael was silly enough to write this on 17 February 2010, and will diligently file this under N'importe quoi
Oh my god, I could really use a drink right now. My boss just gave me my review from last year’s performance, and he voiced — out loud — everything I’ve been ranting about for the last year. I am in the void. The group’s projects are underwhelming, we’re “heavy” aka overstaffed, and the company doesn’t know what to do with me. They’re going to try to find a place for me. That should be heartwarming. That should make me feel safe and secure; I have a job for the foreseeable future. But, brass tacks, I have nothing to do when I come to work, they know it, and no one know how to fix it yet … or ever. I’m bored. I need intellectual stimulation. I don’t want to roam the halls looking for something to do. And yet, he admitted to me that it’s not worth his losing the talent in the short term only to have to make up for it later on. So I have to keep my nose clean and show up every day. And try not to go fucking stir crazy. The Secret doesn’t always work.
My god, it’s humiliating. How am I supposed to look at these people? They’re supposed to help me look for stuff to do, make up new responsibilities, extend current ones. I feel like a charity case. I don’t care about the review and the numbers. I know I didn’t exceed expectations. I know I didn’t perform to the best of my abilities. My abilities do not lie in managing people. They lie in publishing and formatting and copy-editing … things that I can no longer do. I feel like I’ve been cast off, put down in the basement behind stacks of boxes, hidden from view because no one knows what to do with me. How do I make a job where none exists? How can I repurpose my career? How do I stay relevant?
I never thought I would cry at work … especially over something like this, but I’ve never felt so worthless before.
The Friday Random Ten: The Car’s-in-the-Shop-AGAIN Edition
Michael was silly enough to write this on 12 February 2010, and will diligently file this under Friday Random
- “Tammy” — Debbie Reynolds — Oh my god, we’re not starting this way, are we? I can’t listen to her anymore and not think of Bobbi Adler. “Light a match when you poopie-doopie.” Jesus.
- “Love Will Keep Us Together” — Captain and Tennille — What a coincidence. You really have no idea how much I love this song. Really, you don’t.
- « Je me souviens » — Lara Fabian — 9
- “I Need More” — RuPaul — Red Hot
- “Ashes and Wine” — A Fine Frenzy — One Cell in the Sea
- “My Maudlin Career” — Camera Obscura — My Maudlin Career
- “Tus ojos” — ¡Gloria! — Mi Tierra
- “Mushaboom” — Feist — Open Season
- “Love Is Free” — Sheryl Crow — Detours
- “Luck Be a Lady” — Barbra Streisand — Back to Broadway
So my car has been leaking like a fucking sieve lately. It’s a wetter winter than we’ve had in recent years, and I think my sunroof is plugged up, because every rainy day has left puddles on the floor. I mean, real puddles. It’s gross. It stinks. I can’t stand it anymore. So V and I drove down to Palo Alto to a shop that he used to use for his Jetta. My god, that was “fun.” We got up at 5 a.m., drove down in the rain, dropped the car off at the shop (which had a silver VW squareback in the shop … awesome … my parents had a red one when I was like six and it was awesome … I left my crayons in the back seat, and they melted, and my mother yelled at me … ah, memories), and hoofed it to Caltrain. Anyway, V trusts the place, and the guy was very friendly, so we’ll see what happens. He seemed to know exactly what was happening. That’s always reassuring. I can’t stand car trouble. It sucks ass. So, because it’s Friday of a three-day weekend, I won’t have a car for four days, at least. That’s OK. I certainly need the exercise.
Saturday, we’re going down to San Jose to the SAP Open. Another trip on Caltrain, even though we planned to take the train when we bought the tix. I like Caltrain, it just doesn’t run frequently enough on the weekend. That will be fun. I have really grown to like tennis. I kinda know how to keep score, but I understand the rules so it’s easier to watch. We’re going to Indian Wells in March, which will be even better. We’re driving down and staying at the Ace Hotel in Palm Springs. We stayed at the Ace Hotel in Portland for Christmas in 2008, and it was awesome. It’s a quirky and unique hotel chain with just a few locations in the US. The road trip should be fun. I’m looking forward to it. And we’re planning to go to New York in August / September for his Grandma’s 75th birthday and then for the US Open. Tennis all year long.
The Friday Random Ten — The Wet & Stinky Edition
Michael was silly enough to write this on 5 February 2010, and will diligently file this under Friday Random
- “Mosquito” — Vanessa Paradis — M&J
- “Out of Time” — Melanie C — This Time
- “The Pocket Knife” — PJ Harvey — Uh Huh Her
- “Last Thing on My Mind” — Bananarama — Please Yourself
- “Alfie” — ONJ — Indigo Women of Song
- “Shower Scene” — Saint Etienne — Finisterre
- “Fascination” — Everything But the Girl — Eden
- “Nobody Does It Better” — Carly Simon — Reflections
- “Hope for the Hopeless” — A Fine Frenzy — One Cell in the Sea
- “Stacked Crooked” — The New Pornographers — Twin Cinema
So, it’s Friday again, and it rained all night last night, and when I got to my car this morning, the floor on the passenger side was sopping wet again. Somewhere in that damned sunroof, there is a leak and it’s pouring water onto the floor. It’s disgusting, and it stinks, and I’m fed up. I did a quick calculation, and if I got rid of my car I would save over $200 a month in expenses. Add that to the rest of the money that I am going to save this year, and it will be close to $2000 a month in cash … in my pocket. I don’t really know what I would do with all that spare change, but it sure sounds nice.
I have had a headache all week. It’s getting kind of old by now. Don’t really know how to get rid of it. Excedrin and Advil don’t work anymore. Neither does sleep.
V has a marathon on Sunday. He’s running a half-marathon, but still, that’s pretty major. He’s run the course a couple of times already, and he’s been able to get it done in the same amount of time both times … less than two hours, one-fifty-something. That is pretty awesome. I’m impressed by anyone who runs a marathon, half or full. It’s a huge amount of work and training and mental psyching. I am far too sedentary these days to even consider running around the block let alone a race. This is the first one, he’s running a second one next month, another half-marathon in Oakland. I don’t know how he does it, honestly. Makes me look like a lazy slob, really.
I made snickerdoodles last night. They came out looking like silver dollar pancakes. They spread out quite a bit while cooking, and they’re much thinner than I expected them to be. I was hoping for a little more puffy, but they taste OK, so whatever. Not sure I’ll do that again.
I am so over this.
More Civic Duty
Michael was silly enough to write this on 3 February 2010, and will diligently file this under N'importe quoi
I would like to give public and sincere thanks to the City and County of San Francisco for implementing a Twitter service by which to report problems found throughout the city. I have used this service three times already, and three times I have seen the problems fixed within 48 hours. It’s amazing to me. All of the issues I had were with road conditions, small things compared to the overall state of roads in the city, but they were menacing nonetheless. The most recent of these was a smallish pothole up against the curb of Lyon Street, just across from our new apartment. It was about two feet square, just big enough to roll one of your wheels in and not be able to get it back out. It looked like it had been there for a while because it was filled with all sorts of debris, including a banged up old orange street cone. One night, after parking just inches from it, I sent a direct message to @SF311, and within an hour, I had a direct reply with a case number, and two days later, I woke up to the rumble of road equipment tearing up the street to fix the problem, which looks a great deal worse than a simple pothole. I should have taken pictures. In any case, it gives me a little bit of civic satisfaction knowing that I helped fix this irritating problem. I will be vigilant and unafraid to tweet away any issues I see … within reason, of course. I mean, don’t even get me started on the Tenderloin …
In other news, I’m in a bit of quandary. Our new apartment is considerably smaller than Henry Street. I think I’ve mentioned that. V made a sort of half-hearted rule about buying new things, especially when it comes to shoes. Yes, it was directed at me, and yes, I am ignoring him. His rule is that if we buy something new, we should be prepared to get rid of something old, in order to maintain some tenuous balance that he thinks we’ve achieved. Ha, I say. I have 20-ish pairs of shoes, and they’re not at all organized, and it’s messy, but whatever. I wear them all. So, when I saw a sale at 6pm.com, for a pair of Keens that I don’t have yet, and for $30, I had to jump on that. They came in yesterday, and I cleverly wore black shoes to work so that when the new shoes came in (also black), I could swap them and wear them home without raising too much suspicion. I don’t think he noticed them because for sure he would have said something. But now I feel guilty for buying them, or guilty for not telling him that I bought them. Like I need to come clean and admit an offense or something. Like I’m doing something wrong. Like his rule is ridiculous. He doesn’t read this, and no one else does, either, but I still feel like I need some absolution. This is just as ridiculous as his rule.
One of my favorite songs ever, just for fun:
All Done
Michael was silly enough to write this on 1 February 2010, and will diligently file this under N'importe quoi
It’s over, we’re completely moved out of Henry Street. Good-bye, farewell, see ya later. I don’t ever want to do that again. Seriously. Oh my god, I can’t really tell you enough how much I hated that whole experience. Not only the boxing and schlepping across town in I don’t know how many trips, but the amount of junk that I have accumulated over the years and to which I have ascribed some sort of emotional value. It’s junk. Books, CDs, papers beyond belief, I don’t get it. I am moving into a new phase of my life that is non-accumulative. I’m not buying things I don’t need. I’m not collecting junk for the sake of anything. For my sake and sanity, I will strive to be a minimalist. Not only will it help my living space, it will help my bank balance!
And the books! Did I mention that I have more books than I know what to do with? Granted it’s not a library, but it’s so many. So many that I don’t know what to do with them. So many that I want to buy a Kindle just so I don’t have to keep them around. I don’t read as often as I used to, so it’s a wonder why I buy books at all. And that Kindle thing, as much as it’s still an abomination in my mind, is a pretty good idea for those of us who want to remain literate but who don’t have space for it. I have to find a place for all these books. Like, somewhere out of my apartment. Far, far away.
One of the strangest parts of the new apartment is my neighbors, as in, I don’t know them, I don’t see them, I don’t even really hear them, except when they open and close their doors. Our building is three buildings, three floors, six units in each, 18 total, do the math, all connected with little alleys between them, so from up above, the building itself looks like an “M,” a “W,” or an “E,” depending on your point of view. Our kitchen has windows that face onto that alley and look directly into the kitchen of the apartment next door. It was weird to wake up the first morning, go into get breakfast and see someone standing there. I got a little self-conscious of my hair and my attire all of a sudden. But then I realized that they weren’t looking over at us, even though I was looking over at them. I quickly averted my gaze and agreed to ignore them.
It’s weird. I feel like I’m breaking the fourth wall when I do look over, and I can’t help being a little nosy. Plus, they have cats, and the cats see us and stare at us like we’re little laser points on the wall. And that freaks me out because I can see this black mass out of the corner of my eye that is watching me, and I don’t want to look because it’s not polite, and is this what city living is really like? Weird. Really weird. I don’t know them, and I almost don’t want to know them because it would totally ruin it for me. If we met on the street, would I have to be rude and not acknowledge them? Does the fourth wall extend out of the apartment and into the street? And since the windows don’t currently have blinds or curtains, if we put up blinds or curtains, would it seem rude considering the unspoken agreement of non-involvement? I just don’t know enough city etiquette to know what the right answer is. I lived in flats for so long, and they were all so closed off from the neighbors, I don’t know. They were like little houses. I didn’t have to worry about stuff like this.
Whatever. Happy Monday. Happy February.
The Friday Random Ten: The Resurrection Issue
Michael was silly enough to write this on 29 January 2010, and will diligently file this under Friday Random
So, it’s Friday again. It feels like a million years since last weekend. I haven’t been a bit busy at work, and I think that’s what causes time to dilate for me. Or maybe that’s a common conception that I’ve never really discussed with anyone yet.
We are this close to handing over the keys to Henry Street. Last night was a major push to clean the whole apartment. It was pretty clean to begin with, and since V’s craigslist win, all that’s left is a few boxes and a lot of stuff to donate. The Goodwill has seriously made out on all the stuff we’ve been dropping off. But for some reason, I think it would be harder to sell clothes than furniture. Whatever. I mean, every single room has been swept / mopped / vacuumed, the kitchen completely sanitized, we even sprayed the oven before we left last night. I took every piece of the fridge apart and washed it (that was completely necessary and nasty — let’s not have that happen again).
So I guess tonight we’ll make a final run to the Goodwill and take a few more boxes home. Saturday, after my class, we’ll do the last work. Sunday, we’ll drop the keys off, and call it a day. Adieu. Farewell. GTFO.
I know memes are so 2002, but I can’t help it. I love this one probably because it is all about random music on the pod. I love to shuffle. I have accumulated so much music, and I forget that I have most of it, so it’s always a surprise to hear Dream Academy pop up. Hahawhat?
- Too Far (North Pole Mix) — Kylie Minogue
- One Dream — Dream Academy
- Hook — PJ Harvey
- Aller simple — Isabelle Boulay
- Till Death Do Us Part — Madonna
- Slow Ride — Bonnie Raitt
- That’s Life — Frank Sinatra
- We Live Together — Pet Shop Boys
- Detective — No Doubt
- You Won’t Find This — Carrie Underwood
And one more, because how can you refuse Rufus?
- Imaginary Love — Rufus Wainwright
Happy Friday.
Henry Street
Michael was silly enough to write this on 28 January 2010, and will diligently file this under Gay, N'importe quoi
V&I were at Henry Street starting the cleanup process the other night, when a man came up to us and asked us if we lived there. We looked at each other like “what does this one want?” but instead he said that he lived in the neighborhood for 30 years and lived in our apartment for a long time. I was intrigued, mostly because Henry Street has a lot of curiosities that have made me wonder. So we chatted for a few minutes and he revealed a boatload of information.
- He lived next door when Harvey Milk lived at 18 Henry Street and knew him well. That validates probably the biggest thing about our place. We lived in Harvey Milk’s apartment! OMFG. Can you get gayer cred than that? Total win. V found Harvey’s name and address on a voting record from the 70s when Harvey was a supervisor and lived in that apartment. Granted that’s an official record, but whatever. Word of mouth, eye witnesses, and all that.
- He confirmed that the abundance of electrical outlets in the kitchen, dining room, and living room was because the first floor had been a porn studio. No idea what movies were made there, what the production company was called, or anything else, but he hinted that it was a gay porn studio. Why not? And you know, one of the biggest downsides to old Victorian / Edwardian flats is the lack of power outlets. This place had no lack whatsoever, and they all worked. It was pretty convenient, and already I miss them.
- And that funky face mask above the door that leads to the garage? It’s just there to cover the doorbell. Ha. When I first saw it, I freaked out and instantly thought it was satanic or otherwise possessed. I gradually changed my opinion and made it a protective talisman for the apartment. It still freaked me out when I woke up in the middle of the night, looked out the bedroom door, and saw it looking back at me. And here, it’s only a creative way to cover up the doorbell. Silly.
That’s all I can remember right now. We talked for a good 15 minutes, and it was nice to hear the stories. I don’t like talking to strangers because most of the time they want to criticize me for buying a German car (even though it was manufactured in South Carolina), or to complain about how the pigeons on the roof are eavesdropping on them, or some crazy shit. I guess, every once in a while, you meet someone who has something interesting to share.
I’m really going to miss Henry Street.
