Good Wayne

Friday, July 23, 2004

Life Without Jill-Pill

So it's been a month since JP left here.

Of course, most of my life hasn't changed all that much. There is a level of things, through the rest of the week, that are pretty much the same as they've always been.

But work is different.

It feels empty.

It's how no one says good morning. Or come into my cube to tell me how bad traffic was on route 9 or something. I don't have an fluctuating stream of interruptions about YKW fucking up this or that. Her anger clearly visible, yet unwilling to actually say something. She doesn't relate how they'll blame her for this, yet again. She doesn't tell me she's had it with this place.

Lunchtime still stands out. I force myself to sit downstairs, away from my desk, because I can't really take sitting at my desk or the computer much. It's too damned quite. The cafe is quite too, but it's open and different. Expected.

I eat whatever I've brought. The other day it was a peanut butter sandwich and a banana. The JP Special. I bought a book from a small indie press and it's filled with short, short stories. I read one or two or a poem. Some good, some not. Diamonds turn to urine? I don't get it. I notice various publishing errors. I see some cherry mistakes. Simple indent problems here and there; they inverted the text on the spine. I have no one to complain to.

I go outside and walk around the building sometimes. It's hot lately, but the wind is blowing down by the trees, so there's shade and a breeze. I think about how dorky I must look walking around by myself. I think about a story that's slowly been percolating in my head. It's about a woman who's going to kill her former boyfriend and herself atop a small building at the college I used to go to. I keep going over parts of it to see if I can avoid certain clichés. I think it would be better to tell the story from the guy's point of view and he doesn't see it coming to the last second. I have no one to tell this to. I keep walking.

I come back inside and it's much cooler. I go into the cafe and I've got five, ten, twelve minutes before I really have to be back at my desk. Sometimes I sit back down at the same table and flip through the book. I feel like a bigger dork coming back inside and sitting down for eight minutes. Sometimes I just go back up.

I get back to my desk and routine kicks back in. I get tea, I get working. I don't get interrupted with more question about galleys, pages or mechanicals. I burn through the next few hours as always. I surf the internet when I'm too bored. I turn around to check, but there's nobody in that cube.

I don't really interact with anyone else as much. Maybe Rebecca. I see some of the interviewees. Here how they were going to offer someone the job, but she'd rather work in Cambridge for another company. I think that speaks volumes.

I hear they have hired someone. I wonder how it will be to have someone else in that office again. Right behind me again.

I have mixed feelings about it.

5:30, 5:40 or 5-something comes and I go home. Everything begins to return to normal a normal routine.

Monday, the whole thing turns over again.

posted by Evil Wayne | 4:59 PM

0 comments 0 Comments: