Posts Tagged ‘it’
Today was my first bad week of adulthood. That is what we’re calling 21 years old, right? Adulthood?
To provide the slightest sample, it was relatively early in the work day today that I didn’t mark down a staff member at a school her complimentary photo package, as is customary. It’s a relatively minor error, for which there is a form provided. Asking for what we call a variance report, I hear, coming from the mouth of a coworker who has no seniority over myself:
You’ve already messed up?
Well, yes. I admitted to it out loud before anyone present called me on it. Your condescending tone of voice is not appreciated, you fictional expletive.
I chose not to say that, instead smiling and laughing along with her. Even as I joined in with her cacophony, I recognized her laugh as the thinly veiled horse laugh of belittling — three short, barking guffaws. Our supervisor was present. Out of fairness, I hesitate to characterize her motivations.
I’m sure, though, that she really doesn’t like me, and my Bokononism-motivated turn of the cheek doesn’t save me from very much disliking her, and I’m one of those guys who tends to be pretty chipper. It isn’t that hard.
All it takes is to accept the unquestionably outrageous lie that feelings are always a choice, and that one is always in complete control of one’s actions. I figured that if I could swallow that whopper, I could believe just about anything — particularly the tautologies involving honesty and best policy, how one is always personally accountable for one’s actions and that thing about turning the other cheek.
Accepting all of the above, or at least at the appearance of them, keeps me a merry sort of fellow. Outside work, it bleeds over — I don’t want to help set up the band room, but I help out, anyway. Inside work, I feel like I bleed internally — I don’t want to put up with that condescending jerk from the office, but I do, anyway.
More specifically, as far as the office knows, I don’t mind waking up at o’-dark-hundred — true, because I like deserted roads; I get along pretty well with even all the staff — false, because more than a few don’t disguise what seems to be their hate of me; I like working as much as possible — true, because I need the duckets; only infrequently have I the urge to shove timesheets down the collective throats of two or three specific photogs — very, very false.
It’s only just barely that I put up with that whole responsibility gig that comes with coming of age, because it means I have to accept secondary and tertiary responsibilities, too. If I have to put up with one more of these zarking farkwarks, though, they’ll be the straw that broke the camel’s back — I might just renounce my membership from adulthood.
If only I didn’t need those duckets.
My dad believes modern Hollywood could never film anything as subdued as the bus scene in It Happened One Night, and I can personally disagree.
Modern Hollywood, he argues, would make it a music video. Where this singing is relatively rough, modern Hollywood would add more than a touch of gloss. Every hair would be gelled into place; every singer would be professional, noodling their way up and down the melody without regard for pitch or intonation.
That’s the style these days, he’d argue. Americans just don’t do that anymore. Evoking Yogi Berra, he might even add that old movies are a thing of the past. I’d agree if I didn’t have anecdotal evidence that disproves that.
This week, members that veteran’s band I’m in started in on a classic call-and-answer called “Bill Grogan’s Goat” toward the end of our post-rehearsal dinner. We sang along, at first tentatively. Who sings in public, anymore?
We did. “Bicycle Built for Two” and “Man on the Flying Trapeze” later, we sped on from song to song, not that our tempo was anything to brag about. Said one clarinetist:
That was the prettiest dirge we sang all night.
Merry, sober serenades aren’t all that much a thing of the past. We were a more-or-less regular group, and we were just waiting for the check to come in, after the diner had closed for everyone else.
I belted Sinatra and Buble alike, depending on your perspective, and I can personally attest that it was a hell of a lot of fun and that there was no hint of embarrassment.
Most notably, there was a remarkable age parity; there were plenty of young timers taking the lead, even if this group was full of old-timers. These supposedly long-dead traditions will be around for some time longer.
At least until next week, I hope.
