postgraduationhaze

The" target " Entry
Date: 3.11.04
Climate: wind advisory
Eating: steamed vegetables, more like digesting from earlier
Drinking: water
Feeling: excited
Listening to: songs running through my head like a crazy person
Watching: power point
Reading: sexual harassment and discrimination policy

I am currently staying in a hotel that feels like a modern day The Shining. Suffice it to say, but I don't feel comfortable staying there at all, and am not understanding why I cannot just commute from my residence in the Ctown.

This training is thorough and tougher than I had anticipated...if you can imagine, math is involved, can you believe it?
Something about voter percentages in every varience you can imagine.

I am going to call it quits a few days after training, and go home for a week or two. I need some rest because these 17 hour work days are really starting to wear on me...plus, I want to see my parents before I move to one of these battleground states come April 1.

I am going to have to do some parting things before I go...even though I am going to be flown home twice a month;)

Posted by * at 8:23 PM | Permalink | Comments

The" Fan Fare " Entry
Date: 3.9.04
Climate: feels more like fall, not spring
Eating: cous cous
Drinking: water
Feeling: tired
Listening to: John Kerry
Watching: John Kerry
Reading: a great new book that has "paneled" discussions about various topics like the values and dimishment of dissent that is very very old: Hannah Arendt and Norman Mailer are on the panels. I found it on a very dusty shelf in the back of the social sciences library :)

Here's a brief excerpt from what I wrote to my old editor, Jay, about the Rally tonight:
"To be quite frank about the whole thing, i'm forced to draw some comparisons:::
I dated a guy who worked at the Metro for two years and I worked for UR at the time, and I went to some of these soirees in my own right...but anyway, during that time, we went to a few high end music events complete with major label heads and industry folk, fashionistas and writers...and I always found myself disgusted with the level of self importance and networking that went on, never mind the sheer lack of focus for the ultimate reason we were all there, be it a fundraiser or release or whatever. Tonight's rally really was no different--the people I was coupled with were completely decked in the standard blue suit, all talking shop about what they do, what they think, what they care about...they didn't really address Kerry, or the election for that matter--they just sorta held signs for when the cameras were rolling. And never mind that Kerry showed up two hours late--I felt like I was waiting for Bowie.
Also, the signs that were "homemade" looking, weren't--probably the work of some sad campaign functional--my friend got to hold one that said "Shalom Kerry"--he's an Irishman. It was just handed to him, red paint on a blue piece of tagboard...he (I call him Tulane since he went to school there, obviously) just said "Right...shalom Kerry! Yeah! Shalom!"

This rally was so insanely media focused that I just wanted to leave but I waited for so bloody long that there was no way. I just realize that politics in the big money sense, aka the sense it takes to win, may not be my forte just yet. give me the poor and disabled any day to the army of blue suits and television faces that tonight brought me...and whatever Kerry said...I mean, he's not Bush--thats that. But if he had kept us waiting thirty minutes more I swear I was going to yell out "Five more minutes and we're voting for Nader!"

Posted by * at 11:04 PM | Permalink | Comments

The" Don't Be Like That " Entry
Date: Jesse's 20th--
Climate: Cold. Damnit! Where did that taste of spring run off to?
Eating: Devouring a bagel with a sliced banana on top.
Drinking: Water
Feeling: Frazzled and tired
Listening to: Beatles in the background
Watching: Skateboarder guys in hospital parking lots a la West Side.
Reading: --

Today was another four am wake up. I am really getting exhausted, both physically due to the like 17 hour work days I have had to reduce myself to, and emotionally since they both put me on a whirlwind ride...
At five am this morning I got scolded by an extremely wealthy looking gentlemen who was "in a hurry" (at five am?) and was also told that the "beige towels are insufficient to his bathing requirements"
They don't absorb. Craig, my boss, explained it all to me like I was seven or somewhere along those lines.
(Cue annoying British Accent)
Craig: You see Cherie, these towels were, at one time, just like these ones (motions to the coveted white towels which did in fact cater to the said man's bathing requirements).
(Cherie sagely nods)
Craig: Like all towels, they take a bit of, shall we say, washing to get the full realization from them...
(Full realization from a towel. It really IS True what they say about the rich!)
(Cherie continues to sagely nod)
Craig: Do you understand, love?
Cherie: Oh yes.

later, that same day----

Cherie: I gotta go Nafeesah, see you later.
Nafeesah: Have a good day!
Cherie: Oh yeah, one more thing. We're supposed to promote this member incentive promotion with these flier which, of course, don't say anything helpful whatsoever.
(Unbenounced to Cherie, Craig is standing directly behind her)
Craig: And Cherie, why do you suppose that is?
(Turns slowly to face the Craig)
Cherie: Um...to accurately (gulp) get to know all of the members to make this feel even more personable?
Craig: No. Its so they can get to know them (They= members, Them= the three names of corporate salespeople that his rather large thumb is pointing to on the flier).
Cherie: Oh.
Craig: Cherie, everything is thought out carefully here...nothing is an accident you know.
Cherie: Right.
(thinking...but it doesn't say anything. It just says "talk to these three but not to the person telling you to do it...since they aren't allowed disclosure to that information...we're like robots, really, receptionbots.
But she says nothing.

As she leaves, she notes the "In everything that you do, ask yourself, 'is this in the best interest of the club?' " She wonders to what extend the other employees do this.

:::

So that was my day part one. Part two was the job I actually like...had this twenty year old nitwit hit the rental, leaving me outside and cold, waiting on the police for two hours. The second hour was twice as maddening, considering it was because they drove by "without seeing me" and then it took them, you guessed it, another hour to get back after I angrily called 911 (which, incidentally, comes up as S.O.S. on my cell phone--haha.

I also had a man hit on me relentlessly while I was walking around the ward. It was actually getting sorta invasive and he wasn't leaving me alone...he kept accusing me of being racist against black men because I wouldn't give him my number or let him give him his...he kept talking about how "this is America and it shouldn't be like this" or some bullshit or something.
That was the spark that lit the fuse that pretty much went off after the car dent tonight.
I just want to go to bed (which I am going to do and speeding through this entry as I do so).

Yech. Today was a day.
The weekend, however, was so good that I suppose this is just God telling me that my life cannot just be me and happiness in love, always. But this weekend was a nice little slice of pretend.

Posted by * at 10:16 PM | Permalink | Comments