See?
What do you mean see?
I mean, that's how I know her name.
Sure, that explains how you know her name, but that's no "See."
I just meant that's how I knew her name.
Well, you're not winning some argument, you don't have to say "See."



Actually, she's my biological mother, that's how I knew her name.
Oh, that explains a lot.
See?
That tone is off-putting.
What?
That. Tone. That "See." It's very off-putting.
Uh, oh. Um, that wasn't at all my intention. I'm sorry.



It took me forever to find that 1308 today. See that address 1308?
Yes.
It took me forever to find it.

My boss's wife always gets passive aggressive when she isn't having a great day. When we're working at the school, it's just the two of us, up on thirty-five foot scaffolding with not much more than our breathing, the school bells, and maybe an occasional talking point such as the weather or the nature of our cats to break the silence. If she's having a bad day, I'm the only thing around to take out her frustrations on, so she does.

The worst was the day that she got frustrated with me for proving her wrong in some way. Whatever it was was insignificant enough to forget, but significant enough for me to feel the need to correct her on whatever it was. It had something to do with cleaning the surface of the mural. She got kind of quiet with I told her what needed to be said, and proceeded throughout the day to tell me what to do as if I were doing things incorrectly. Maybe I should have left well enough alone to begin with -- but I'm the one that's going to be doing the painting on the missing areas, and whatever she was doing was causing a great deal of paint loss.

She told me that I needed to stop rubbing the swab across the surface of the painting. I told her that I wasn't, that I was rolling it. She told me that the way I was holding it made that impossible. I had no idea how to respond so I just said ok, and kept doing what I was doing. There's no way to correct what isn't wrong. She said things that embarrassed me that had nothing to do with work and if I had predicted that sort of response, I would have kept my mouth shut.

Nothing since has been as awkward or as uncalled for. However, she still maintains some passive aggression in the workplace if she's frustrated with whatever she's working on, or hasn't had a smooth day in general.

Today:

"I'm going to iron over to this seam." I said. She had begun ironing as far over as she expected to go, which was about a foot short of that seam. I was ironing a larger area to begin with, and half of her section won't be able to be ironed today at all. I thought giving her that one foot would be entirely fair.
"Oh, um, all right."
I continued to iron, my section being pretty easy going and quick to iron.
I reached the end of my section on the upper platform. "I'm going to clean and see how it goes." Our problem was that before this second ironing, flakes of paint were coming up when we tried to clean. I would be able to clean now while she finished up her ironing and we'd make even more head way.
After five or ten minutes, "You still have alot of ironing to do. I thought you were just testing to see if it would flake or not. You don't need to clean it like that right now. Also, we have a different kind of cleaner, so you don't have to clean it that much."
"I finished my section of ironing, and there's alot of consolodant on the surface that the neutral soap won't be able to go through, I was just trying to break the surface."
"Well, I didn't know you were going to be cleaning it, I thought you were just testing to see if it would flake or not." She repeated. "There's still all of the ironing on the second level to do."
"Yeah, there's not much of that." I couldn't help but be a smart-aleck. It didn't matter if I cleaned now or later. She was taking such a long time ironing that I could probably clean and iron on the second level while I waited for her to finish her section.
"Well, that needs to be done first, before anything else."
I didn't say anything, I just put my cleaning supplies up and got my iron and went to the second level.

It's not a big deal, and nothing that I should talk back about, but there's no logic to her responses and no consistency. There's no way to tell if what I'm doing is going to be ok or not, because it all depends on whether or not she's having a bad day.

I'm sure I would respect her more if it wasn't obvious that when she's passive-agressive it's personal, not professional.

A Song

Growing Up
by Andrew Jackson Jihad

Growing up
really fucking sucks
I've got too much stuff
I don't make enough
And soon I'm gonna turn to dust
I'm gonna turn to dust
And I am afraid I don't care.

Growing up
really fucking sucks
I've fallen down
and I can't get up
And soon
I'm not going to bother
I'm going to lay on the ground until I die
and I'm afraid I don't care.

Growing up
really fucking sucks
I want to fall in love
but I don't love anybody
And soon, there will be nobody
who will want to fall in love with me
And I'm afraid I don't care

You say you want a revolution.

Well, you know, we all want to change the world.

"If there's no validity in religion, then what's the point? If we live and die and that's the end of it, what do we have to work towards? That's a depressing thought -- that there's nothing after this. That this is it. People need religion to give them hope, to make it all make sense."
"I think that believing that this is all that exists is freeing. It makes everything we do all the more worthwhile. It means you have to be the best you can be, and make sure that you treat others with the respect and dignity that they deserve. If this is all there is, we're more motivated to make the best of it all."

We are members of the new lost generation. We live ironically without even understanding that irony. We listen to bad music, and read bad books -- and maybe we think they're absurd, but when does absurdity stop being self-aware and turn into accepted reality? I say we listen to bad music and read bad books, but most of us don't even do that anymore. Everything's so passive. We listen to what's on, but we don't hear it. We read street signs, not books, and we only do that because we have no idea where we're going.

We follow trends because our identity is so wrapped up in our appearance that we can't be caught being something that doesn't make sense anymore. Our clothes are what our actions used to be. She's a hipster, he's neo-grunge, they listen to hardcore and live to mosh. You look like you voted for Obama -- oh, you didn't vote. Well, you're liberal, right? I mean, you have the blue dot sticker on your car.

We're disillisioned and disenchanted, but it's because we're egotistical and self-absorbed. It's not because we've seen the bottom of it all and are struggling to get back up. We need a strong sense of community and togetherness to make any sort of a difference, but we tetter between being spread so socially thin that we have no idea who the people are that we're "friends with" and being part of some exclusionary troop that finds comfort in sameness. It's not cool to do anything grand, so we all operate with our unthreatening mediocrity.

I don't have a solution, but I don't want to feel like this is as good as it gets -- not yet.

She introduced me as her associate. It sounded so dignified and official, I couldn't help but smile. I'm hardly an associate. I would classify myself as an apprentice. I try not to think of myself as either. One implies more knowledge and experience than I can claim, and the other admits that my previous education played virtually no role in my acquisition of this job.

Last night I tried to talk to some post-graduate friends about the nature of photons and light and how they act like waves. If you were to build a wall in the ocean where the wall has a space cut out of it and you were to watch the waves breaking against the wall and going through the space, the water would rush through the space and create semi-circular waves of increasing size. Light works the same way. When you send photons through a similar construction, they make the same semi-circular pattern. But here's the crazy part -- if you were to send those photons through individually and map their pattern, they will make the same pattern that they would have if they were all sent through together. Which means that they do not actually act like a wave, but in fact they act like they act like a wave. And the same can be said for photons being sent through a piece of glass. A percentage, let's say 4% of the light that hits a piece of glass bounces back, and 96% goes through. If you were to send 100 photons through that piece of glass individually, 4 out of that 100 would bounce back. And the only way to explain this is that that's just how the universe works. That's not to say that we haven't yet found a better explanation -- that is the explanation.
They were uninterested.
I didn't go to school for this -- to graduate and stop being interested in learning. I enjoy spending time with my friends that are still in school because they're so saturated with knowledge and learning that they can't help but talk about it. That's not the case with my post-graduate friends. It's not that they're entirely opposed to the search for knowledge, it's just that they don't seek it. And maybe I don't either, and maybe the only time that we need and want to talk about learning is when exterior forces are motivating us -- like tests and papers and passing a class.
I don't want to run out of things to say because the same topics have already been rehashed to death. I don't want to watch television because there's nothing better to do or to talk about. I don't want to feel mundane.

I've noticed that whenever I'm driving and there's something in the middle of the road --a large limb, a box that's fallen off the back of a truck, strips of shredder tire, or any kind of substantial debris -- I have the urge to treat it as if it belongs there. I want to drive right over it, as if by simply being in the middle of the road it has become part of the road. And that whether or not it may mess up my tires, or alignment, or puncture something of value on the underside of my car, it has become a legitimate terrain. I always turn away at the last second, but I can't help but wonder how much damage it would really do.
The concern I have about this thought process has nothing to do with my car. I'll always know that to go over something large in the middle of the road is a bad idea, that the debris doesn't really belong there, that just because it's in the road and there are no damaged cars on sight doesn't mean it isn't capable of inflicting damage -- the other drivers just knew to avoid it.
The concern I have has to do with the other aspects of my life. If I were to be completely honest with myself, I would admit to having several people in my life that I would consider to be fallen limbs in the middle of my road. But because they are people, and much more complex than an obstacle on a path that should be avoided, it's difficult to turn the wheel before any damage occurs.

The things he half wishes half dreads she will say.

This just isn't working, is it?
I mean, to be honest, I never thought it would.
But you know what's really great?
I'm not worried about you being embarrassed by me, or not all together interested in me. Because I'm not all together interested in you, either.
Well yes, I would like to say that it's not you, it's me -- but that's just not true. I'm equally guilty, but you certainly aren't innocent.
Your constant need to be the smartest person in the room, and to correct everyone's little mistakes is really alienating.
No, don't make it seem like you're doing us a favor. We know you're smart -- but more than that, we'd like credit for being smart too. Or at least an atmosphere of intelligent equality. No one likes a know-it-all. Especially when you don't know it all.
You know what else, you don't really laugh at my jokes, you just sort of scoff. Sometimes that scoff is paired with an eye roll, or a "you're so weird." The only way I know you think I'm genuinely funny is when you steal my jokes without giving me credit, even though you never tell me it's funny at the time. And I'm not saying I'm hilariously funny, but I have a pretty good handle on wit. Do you feel intimidated by my sense of humor?
I'm quirky and weird and silly, and I like these things about me. You make me feel awkward and stupid for trying to have fun. Cut loose for once and stop taking yourself so seriously -- no one else does.
But besides all that, here's the real clencher -- we don't communicate well, which really throws me off. I'm normally really good at communicating with my friends, and in general. I don't know if it's just me, or if everyone has the same problem reading you. While it frustrates me to no end, in some masochistic way it makes me want to stick around -- to maybe one day crack the code and have everything make sense, or to maybe get close enough so that you'll bring down that wall. But on the other hand, I have to wonder if it's really a wall at all, or if it's just you.
Also I've never heard a genuine or significant "Please" or "Thank you" from you. Not once. Those are two of the easiest things to say. I'm not saying that sort of thing is a deal breaker, but I think it's a pretty good indicator of potential appreciation.
We've had some fun, but let's just agree that we'll probably never agree.

"Just cause you feel it, doesn't mean it's there"

Last night I watched a Homewood cop in an all black cop car stop a guy from pulling out and straightening up his car. I say stop, because pull over isn't a term that can be used for this situation. He was already over; he had never left over.
"Could you please tell me what you've been drinking tonight that you can't see a cop car right behind you when you're pulling out? I'm the most visible thing on this street." As I looked at his black squad car, I thought of it as a nocturnal creature, blending seamlessly into its dark surroundings, perfectly camoflauged until you pass right in front of it, catching the creepy glint of its eyes.
This initial comment was undoubtedly because it was a Friday night and there is one bar in downtown Homewood called Oak Hill, about a hundred feet from where this guy was parked. An easy D.U.I., the policeman must have thought.
"I haven't been drinking at all."
"Oh, really? Is that so, 'cause you sure smell like alcohol." This guy must have a hyper-sensitive nose, since he couldn't have been less than three feet away from and above the person he was addressing. Or maybe the guy reeked of alcohol, but I doubt it.
"Where are you coming from this evening?"
"Home."
"Home? What, do you live here?" said snidely, looking up and down at the darkened store fronts.
I tried not to gawk as the driver proceeded to follow through with a field sobriety test. I can only imagine how nervous he must have felt with a group of six or seven people recently dispensed from the coffee shop his car was parked in front of, tuning in to the entertainment.
"If you stop being a dick, I won't have to be a dick."
Just because you have a gun and a uniform doesn't mean you can treat people like trash. Or maybe it does. Maybe the vulgar and ill-founded exchange was actually a gift. Who doesn't love telling the "I got pulled over by a crazy machismo of a cop for straightening up my parking job" story? He'll be able to tell that story and maybe even retell it to some people for a week or two before it gets tired and boring. There aren't many stories you can say that about.

Dream

I had this dream a week or so ago:

It's night. I'm walking around the cement yard that jutted out behind my mother's old classroom at my high school. There's only the amount of light that would be given off by maybe two dimming street lights. All of a sudden I spot a miniature gun, it's barely the size of my palm. I pick it up and cannot resist the urge to shoot it. I shoot it into the darkness and am immediately splattered by thick blood. I'm horrified and, realizing that I've just accidentally murdered someone, I drop the gun and look around me frantically. It is only then that I notice that there are 5 or 6 people standing around.

A woman a few feet from me, picks up the gun that I've just discarded and tells me that if I don't shoot the gun again into the darkness, that she will murder the small boy standing between me and herself. Not wanting to witness this child's death and hoping and praying that I can't possibly accidentally murder two people in the same fashion, I take the gun from her and shoot again into the darkness -- and am again splattered by a lot of thick blood. I panic and decide that I can't possibly explain any of this to the police, so I must kill every witness there. I do, and am each time splattered with blood.

I decide that I will have to leave town, change my name, and start a new life if I want to escape what I've just done. I walk towards the cafeteria, which isn't far at all from the cement yard. Inside the cafeteria, a class is being held, students are seated all around in a fairly disorganized manner with papers covering every surface of every lunchroom table. I walk up to my mother, the teacher, and am preparing myself to tell her of what I've just done and my plans to leave and start a new life when I realize that I'm dreaming. But beyond that, I realize why I'm dreaming this particular dream. I remember going to my friends' Justin and Eric's apartment and picking up a tiny gun lighter in Justin's room and being startled by the flame. I'm still covered in blood, but explaining this to my mom, who seems entirely unphased by anything I'm telling her, or my blood-soaked body.

Then I woke up.

At times I am overwhelmed by the possibility that my super-sized family-value pack of toilet paper could last me the rest of my life -- well, at least until I start a family.

The Sleeper

She has begun sleeping more hours a day. She was always one to enjoy a good nap, but her naps are turning into four part symphonies, each one more monumental than the last. She wondered, initially, if she was depressed -- sleeping thirteen hours a day, not having the desire to get out and do much of anything.

She doesn't feel sad, or sorry, though. She rationalizes the initial query with the notion that to question one's depression is probably proof that it doesn't exist.

Change is gonna come

Today I cried in the car when I heard a young child on This American Life reading the first ten things that Obama should do once he's inaugurated.

I'm staying with a friends' family in Maryland right outside of D.C. and will be traveling into the city in the morning to be among the masses. I realize that I have no idea what I'm in for. This is perhaps the most historic moment of my lifetime, and I feel so blessed to have taken the opportunity to be here. I just hope I can recall it later with any sort of meaningful accuracy.

It snowed all the way through half of Tennessee and most of Virginia. I felt like we were tiny particles weaving in and out of the grooves of a sugar cookie. I've never known a country-side to be more beautiful.