Time

So now I am working on my resume for time to move on with my career has arrived… But as I type another thought has arrived… Due to excessive stress/ work/ brainwashing… I’ve realized that my conversational range has shrunk to near zero… I.e. I can talk about very few topics… sports as always… though less than before… booze and drugs… for one always keeps the dearest the closest to the heart… bad weather… for something must be said of being stuck for twenty floors in an elevator with a bozo you cant stand so bad that standing there silent is just unacceptable… and finally… work… how so and so did this or that and how its all really retarded and my karmic signs are really out of place there and that shit… I’ve been talking about this shit for over a year now…

Whatever happened to the smart, civil, witty, cultured me… no longer can I opine on modern topics of importance… such as lesbian rights to reproduce and bear children… no longer am I an ardent advocate of political change – fuck them all… no longer am I madly obsessed with philosophy of our times – screw them, let them all rot in consumerist hell… and no longer I root mindlessly for a bunch of mindless jocks playing an equally mindless sport… somehow it all receded to the nether regions of my brain I call my not so near past… and there it resides… only for me to reach back on those whistful rainy Sunday afternoons… to the equally rainy Sunday afternoons my junior year in Binghamton… when like a bored and mindless degenerate that I surely must have been… I would make my way, every Sunday afternoon, to the Sports Bar… to watch my miserable and beloved Jets lose game after game after game to reach the now hallowed record of 1-15…. And why did I have to go watch those games.. even when all hope was lost and gone… why did I have to drink those beers and eat those wings? Perhaps bored idiot’s hope springs eternal… lack of vision… misunderstanding of the term loyalty… anyway… the point I am getting to.. is the more I think back… the more i realize that I’ve wasted quite a healthy portion of my life on worthless and idiotic pursuits… such as gainful employment when I needed none… such as trusted friends when they certainly were not… such as empty days and nights, spent in front of a television with a pipe in hand… or to be honest… not even that much… just an empty, bored grin…

Yes… I am getting old… and lamenting loss of time… and the question I am coming to is am I wasting my time now… will I look at these days with a bemused smirk and shake my head…. When I am over 40… sitting on some suburban train… at six thirty in the morning… dressed like a modern ape in a freshly pressed suit and an over priced tie… on my way to a job that I despise to do work that I find meaningless and to make money for people I feel are worthless…. Now if this aint a real nugget for the evening… I don’t know what is….

Disclaimer: this was written while sipping on a heavy potion of night time thera-flu… so misery and melancholy expressed in the above paragraphs might be the direct result of the headache currently creeping around my head, as well as all in all bitterness about my life that overcomes me in time of illness or any other minor inconvenience…

Hygiene and society today

So just wrote a nice long piece on the interesting points of the current CDO/ subprime meltdown and my honoured place amidst it… tried highlighting everything to copy it… to ensure that I don’t lose it to some random internet mishap…. Instead my 2 page article of intelligence and wit went somewhere… where I don’t know… and my thoughts and dreams and wisdom of those inspired moments is gone forever and ever… into the netherworld of my bright new laptop… may they rest in peace…

Of course there are other thoughts I have, outside career thoughts… for example I found myself in a restaurant the other day… in the restaurant’s toilet to be exact… and while I was surveying this particular facility’s hygienic condition and stark observation came to mind… there… above the polished white sink…. With the pubic hair at the bottom… there hung a sign… in clear and plain English informing that all employees must wash hands after using the bathroom… now there was nothing novel in this particular sign as it appears in pretty much every toilet in every eatery in tri-state area… but what caught my attention were two interesting points in particular…

First of all… a large percentage of any restaurant’s staff is Mexican/ central American immigrants… most likely illegal (though I am all for it)… and though they are not likely to be the maitre’d or the waiter, they are likely to have something to do with the food we eat – say basic preparation of the ingredients and the plates/ utensils… there I asked myself what are the odds of these specific individuals, towards whom this sign is specifically directed, being able to read and understand this sign… now it is big and clear… and it does have an image of running water on it… but realistically speaking, how many Miguel’s or Jose’s or whoever else would be able to read it and comprehend it? Not to be unfair or anything… for I hold all of these individuals in the highest respect… but probably a lot of them, given that they are the way below minimum wage labor and definitely deal with essential functions such as unpacking and laying out the basic ingredients which we later digest, in great glee and aplomb… probably understand none of it… and hence the sign should at the very least be bilingual… in both both English and Spanish…

And this leads to the second point… in all likelihood this sign has nothing to do with the employees altogether… I bet they have a bathroom in the back that they use and the bathroom I found myself in, incense stinking, dimly lit and perfect for a quality nap… this bathroom is only for big shot, paying customers like me… so hence, this big loud and clear sign really has nothing to do with the employees who only get to read it, or to be more correct, according to the above paragraph, see it, when they show up in the bathroom with a bucket and a mop in hand, ready to wipe some cokeheads snot off the toilet bowl…. Yes, the sign is a big subconscious brainwashing plot to make us, overworked yuppie imbeciles, think that this place is germ free and sanitized like crazy… and the restaurant maybe is germ free, and maybe it is indeed over-sanitized… who the hell knows… but this particular sign… which I must admit guilts me into washing my filthy paws three times over just like my grandma prescribed… really is nothing but a ruse to play on our impressionistic minds… poisoned by calorie counts and health ads… myriads of flesh eating diseases and horrific fatal ends…. Neurosis and car wrecks…. Terrorists and mass murderers….
Anyway… too bad my professional tract got wiped out… that one was good… but I guess whats not meant to be is not meant to be…