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...and up again at six, which isn't much better for online company-keeping. I originally woke up at five; I don't even need the alarm any more. My body does it automatically. Thanks, meatbag. You're a pal. I seem to have lost my pocket calendar, which also has most of my phone numbers. Granted, I have most of the information duplicated at home, but it still feels not unlike losing a limb. After speaking to Lynnee yesterday, it's official: we're doing Clint Catalyst's show in West Hollywood on July 20. Yay. I'm continuing to ask around, and am waiting to hear back about a particularly cherry gig that weekend. It's extremely prone to jinxing, though, so the less said, the better. Much to be done today.
9:37am I don't think the phrase "micro-manage" has been used in my direction since the didn't-seem-so-bad-at-the-time temp job at Bank of America in '97. Back then, I had no idea what it meant. By now, I have a pretty good idea. My New Immediate Supervisor said on Friday morning that he really isn't any good at micro-managing and doesn't want to, but if this keeps up, he'll have no choice. "This isn't like the front desk." Ha! That'a a good one. Jeez, though, I've only been in this new position for, like, two days. Pardon me for not having my bearings just yet. Oh well. At least it wasn't My Boss. Indeed, in spite of his promise that he would dog me until my final breath (okay, I'm paraphrasing), I seem to have fallen off his radar for the time being. His idea of me spending a week training the new guy didn't happen; his first day was Tuesday, the day my new computer arrived, and by late afternoon I'd already gotten it set up in the other office. By midday Wednesday, I'd moved. By Thursday, as my Immediate Supervisor told me today, I was already slacking. Pretty quick, huh? Fear my prodigious slackitude! Once again, I got caught doing Personal Things, such as but not limited to checking my email. The green-on-black motif which worked as camouflage against My Boss was no longer so effective, and it seems the zero-tolerance policy about non-productivity is company-wide. (Funny thing is, I can point out several examples of other people in the company not being perfect drones every second of the day, but there wouldn't be much point.) It's not a bad tradeoff, really: the phone never rings, my new computer has a great soundcard, I can wear my Princess Leia headphones, I can leave at half past three (which, even though I start work at half past seven, feels like leaving early), and so on. Being smack dab in my Supervisor's monitor mirror and thus not being able to write at work anymore, combined with unethical nature of somec certain aspects of my work, is the price I'll have to pay to keep this job. And I really, really need to keep this job. As such, my primary fear was that he would tell My Boss, who would shitcan me right then and there—after explaining in graphic detail how much I suck, how He should have never trusted me in the first place, and so on. Didn't happen. Indeed, my theory about getting out of His line of vision is proving correct for now. I still don't feel entirely right, though. The thought of dealing with Him makes me almost more uncomfortable now than it did before. It's as if He's just saving it all up, and soon He'll call me into His office and tell me how disappointed and cheated He feels... Ugh. Happy thoughts now, please? Having freshly colored hair made me feel a bit better about the show at The Dark Room last Saturday. My mood was still fairly bleak from the previous few weeks, and I found myself wondering how actual comedians handle having to perform when they're feeling dark. They can probably work with it because they already know what they're going to say onstage, but when you're improvising (and still a newbie like myself), it can be intimidating. Especially when you're working off of someone else. Maddy and I had barely been there five minutes before I got smoked out; I took it as a vote of confidence from Jim that he thought I'd do a good job even if stoned. Like at the Spang Bang, I'd come down just enough by the time the show started that I had a buzz yet was able to form coherent sentences with relatively little difficulty. At least, I think I managed to speak clearly more often than I slurred. Adding to the pressure was the presence of Uphill Both Ways in the audience—there's nothing scarier than trying to be funny in front of a group of brillian comedians. And I opened the show myself, which I wasn't expecting. It went well, though. The crowd response was good, and Jim and I worked together quite well, so much so that he said he'd like to co-host with me again sometime. (He also asked me about being one of the revolving hosts of The Blacklist, a weekly open mic starting in June.) The guys in Uphill Both Ways told me I was really (intentionally) funny, which I took as high praise indeed. One of them commented that they'd seen me around (and I was even in Hitch-hiker's Guide with troupe member Colin Benoit), but had never actually seen me do my thing. I thanked him, but assured him that this wasn't technically my thing. When Uphill Both Ways performed, I was the only person who stayed in the front row during "The Spittake Family." Colin said he made sure to send one in my direction. I would have been disappointed if he hadn't. Sunday, of course, was K'vetch. It was what it was, and surely not as bad as I think. Monday night got off to an ignominious start. My Boss decided to take an interest in a project which He'd previously elected to keep out of. He decided that not only was everything wrong wrong WRONG, a proposal template which He'd approved just a few weeks earlier was now judged to be poorly written and unusable. That, of course, was my fault. When He wants something changed, He can't just say so; it always has to be phrased as though it's an error of mine which needs to be corrected. Yes, all right, I make the occasional (even frequent) honest-to-Oscar errors and typos and whatnot. I'm all kinds of human, lemme tell ya. His way of handling it is a lifelong peeve of mine: asking me why I did it that way. So, I was rewriting a proposal we'd sent to a different company. No point in reinventing the wheel—that's His job—and I was in a hurry, since the project had been dropped in my lap a few hours earlier with no small sense of urgency attached. The search-n-replace and I both missed one particular reference to the previous company, and naturally, He zeroed in on it. "Sherilyn, why does it say xxxxxx? This proposal is for yyyyyy. Why did you write xxxxxxx here?" Already being upset since I'd been kept a half an hour late at work with no end in sight and I had somewhere I needed to be, I was in a very literal mood. (The Ex and Maddy know how that one works.) Ergo, I told Him the truth: it's a typo. it's supposed to say yyyyyyy, and i missed that particular instance when i was changing the company name. it's not intentional or deliberate. it's a mistake. He closed His eyes, sighed, and replied in a practiced i'm-surrounded-by-idiots tone, "Sherilyn, I know it's not intentional." He moved on to another topic (as He always does when I've made a good point or stated a fact He can't argue) before I could scream then why did you fucking ask? Just as well. At that moment, however, I resolved not to look in His eyes for the rest of the evening. He no longer deserved that respect. As you've probably noticed, He uses my name when talking down to me, like I'm a slow child who won't pay attention otherwise. "Sherilyn, does this make sense to you?" "Now, Sherilyn, isn't it reasonable that..." Every time He did it, I got a little more agitated. To what extent He really picked up on said agitation I don't know, since whenever I speak my mind (or, heaven forfend, defend myself), He brushes me off as though I'm just a hysterical woman. ("All right, Sherilyn, all right, cut the chatter.") That I forfeited the right to be taken seriously by certain people when I transitioned is something I'm very much aware of, and it's the farthest thing from right. He finally let me go at half past six, an hour and a half late. By that point, His mood had made one of its frequent switcheroos, and He was telling me in a remarkably non-snarky voice how grateful He was that I'd stayed late, how important it was to get the proposals just right, and so on. Without looking up from my screen, I said for whatever it's worth, my friend is in town from New Orleans on tour for her latest novel, and i'd hoped to be at her reading at the booksmith tonight. it starts in half an hour. He replied that it would probably still be going on when I arrived, and the fun generally begins afterwards. (God, I hate it when He's right. Maybe even as much as He hates it when I'm right.) I added the novel is set in the New Orleans restaurant culture. Not relevant, except that since He's both a traveler and a food snob (as opposed to a foodie, which is a good thing), I knew that would pique His interest. I didn't mention Poppy's name, and He didn't ask. I know all too well that if it was unsolicited information it would never make it past the first earwax deposit, and even if He had asked, it still would have died right around the third. Nothing worth knowing can come from me. Since we were talking about such things, I told Him (continuing to keep my eyes on the screen) that I was going to be out of town for a week or so in July. "Okay," He said. (He's surely forgotten by now.) not sure exactly when. i'm still booking the gigs. "Gigs?" readings. "Poetry?" spoken word, actually. prose "Cool!" Yeah, right. It's not that He cares about what I do, nor am I suggesting that I'm any more deserving of being treated with respect due to my exhibitionistic tendencies. But considering He's always going on about how my half of the demographic spectrum is borderline illterate, how none of us read books anymore and all we do is watch teevee or play video games, it felt important to establish that some of us are fighting the good fight. Again, it's not that He cares, or ever will care, which is why I don't mind Him knowing about my extracurricular activities. He really couldn't give a shit. He ain't gonna show up at a reading or play or anything. Stating it aloud was a reminder to myself: no matter how much He tries to reduce me, grind me under His heel as He redirects His frustrations with the world towards the most convenient target, there was a part of me that He could not touch. No, not just a part of me; the majority of me. What He got to fuck around with was just the barest fraction, and this was not my life. There was a bigger, better world waiting for me outside the door. The door wasn't ready for me, not just yet. I still had a lot a lot a lot of negative energy coursing through me, demanding some manner of release. I'd hit the Rescue Remedy a couple hours earlier at the onset of the ugliness, but sometimes a placebo is just a placebo, especially when you know it's a placebo—y'know? So. I needed something more, something real, something which wouldn't so much dull the pain as bring it to the surface where it could be reckoned with. I'd taken a couple swipes at my inner arm with a fingernail earlier, but that simply wouldn't do. On the way to the car I stopped in the women's restroom, reliably deserted at that time of the evening. From my bag I produced my company-branded pocketknife, an unsolicited tchotzke which arrived in the mail one day last year. Sometimes I listen to the good advice I'm given, so I cut my outer arm, not my inner as is usually my custom. The cuts were remaarkably bloodless at first, so once I did a few, I had to do a few more, and then a few more after that. I stopped at about a dozen or so, mostly horizontal with the occasional few criss-crosses, some reminding me vaguely of Schiaparelli's canali. I didn't stop out of a sense of what the hell am I doing?—I knew exactly what I was doing—but rather if i'm going to scar myself, and i'll probably want to for real someday, i'd rather it wasn't QUITE so random. Besides, that was plenty for now. They began to bleed, and the rush of mild shakes hit. Was He making me do this? I don't know. It was certainly my way of dealing with what he'd been doing to my head and my soul. It makes no sense unless you're occupying my headspace, but it felt like a way of rising above it. The mild shakes hit. They felt good, as I knew they would. you have not defeated me. i can take what you can dish out, what you try to do to me, and turn it into something beautiful, even if only i can appreciate it. I carry neosporin in my bag, and when I got home that evening I used hydrogen peroxide. I'm not completely lacking in reck, after all. I also kept the arm covered for the rest of the week, until the cuts had healed up and started to fade. Nobody else needed to deal with my trip. At least I stayed late enough to miss the worst of the evening commute traffic, so I arrived while Poppy was still reading. It was standing room only, which was just as well since I was in no mood to sit still. Besides, I tend to stand during readings even when I haven't had a painfully bad day at work. Happy thoughts, I was saying? In spite of a dinner which was originally supposed to be fairly intimate yet grew into what Poppy charitably called a "clusterfuck" (too many people at an overpriced restaurant with lousy service and just okay food), the evening ended much, much, much better than it began—lately my nights have gone in the opposite direction, what with my tendency to take a good situation and bend it until it breaks. Maddy and I probably stayed out longer than we should have, but by the end, I was in one of those moments which I wanted to last, and I was certainly in no rush for the next day to arrive. We could see the rooftops, and had the means to identify any bird which happened along. Everything was good, again.
11:24am I've slightly overhauled my root page (now with 30% more gray!), and the kittypr0n site has received a long-overdue update. The most recent episodes are listed, and there's even some new screenshots. It's probably a beautiful day outside.
6:06pm There was a split infinitive on my root page for at least a few weeks. How embarrassing. It's better now. Of course, this makes me sound much more knowledgeable about the precise rules of grammar than I actually am; I can usually tell when something isn't right (and I'll notice it sooner in someone else's words than my own, natch), but the split infinitive is one of the few I can actually name, thanks to Star Trek. No doubt they were covered in school, but I didn't do so well in English. Fortunately, I was always good friends with my teachers, so I squeaked by. There's a pattern which hasn't changed. Something else I just noticed about the page, at least on my monitor at home: the horizontal gray bar on the upper right half of the screen looks darker than the vertical one on the left side of the screen, even though it's all #666666. How optically illusional.
10:28pm
WRITER CATEGORY (Please choose one):Seeing as how simply "Writer" isn't an option—and listing that under "Other" didn't feel right—I went with "Performance Artist." What the heck. I've been drifting in that direction anyway. Though now that I think about it, "Literary Nonfiction Writer" fits, too.
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Maddy and I just bought plane tickets for New Orleans. For this xmas. Man. Is it possible to be impulsive seven months in advance? Does it work like that?
4:49pm I'm going blonde eventually. It's inevitable. I came to realize this on Saturday after we bleached my hair prior to repurpling it. My natural color strips from the roots quite nicely without doing any noticeable damage to the hair—I wouldn't bother trying to make it through the black—and I'm intrigued as hell by how it looks. Not just yet. But one of these years, and soon. (Oughta start taking odds on how long I hold out.) And, yes, I know it's probably a bad idea. That's hardly relevant.
10:40pm Unless Lynnee can't do it for some reason—he said he's free for the entire month, so there shouldn't be a problem—we'll be featuring at Clint Catalyst's event at the Parlour Club in West Hollywood on July 20. So neat. Breedpal's been all over the world with Tribe 8 (and will have hopped back and forth across the country for various readings and lectures and movie screenings a few more times before then) so it's no big deal to him, but it's pretty major to me. It's also good to finally have a firm date to use when trying to scrounge up other gigs; I figure if we can get two more, that'll justify me coming up with a clever name for the quote-tour-unquote. Lemme tell ya, though, getting booked for shows can almost be as tedious and annoying as promoting them, and I don't seem to be much better at one than the other (cf. the anemic attendance at Wicked Messenger), but it's all worth the effort. I'd call it paying dues, except I have a hunch it'll never end.
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when rome comes to you, the same conditions apply.
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