Tag Archives: day-to-day

Last Train to Worksville

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Here’s an update, in case you were curious. Starting this weekend, Metro put in place further service cuts, making it thirty minutes between each train, all trains. It takes me two trains to get to my night job, so I could be looking at, conceivably, hour of waiting in train stations plus the forty minutes it takes me to get there when the trains are running normally, one way. On a bad day, I could spend up to three hours and twenty minutes commuting to and from a five-hour shift. 

Between this and my utter lack of confidence in the CEO’s plan to keep us uninfected, I sent a detailed email to all of my managers plus the regional manager explaining why I wouldn’t be coming in until the crisis passes (including said lack of confidence in the CEO’s plan). I got a very kind and understanding email in return from one of the managers, who promised to keep my updated on what was going on. 

I don’t like doing that. Calling in sick to an understaffed retail job seriously screws over anybody who didn’t or couldn’t call in sick, which is why I’d been forcing myself to go when even when I was at serious risk. But this thing with the Metro is the last straw. The government doesn’t want us to go out for inessential reasons, and it’s making it harder and harder to do that. The Container Store isn’t particularly essential in the first place, and I felt in my gut that, the longer I worked there, it was only a matter of when I became infected, not if.

So now I have a weekend again, after months upon months of not having one, and I can’t do anything with it except wonder what my cats just broke and try to convince Nicole that what she has is allergies, not the coronavirus.

In the Trenches

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I don’t like to speak ill of my employers in such a public forum, but I’m at my wit’s end here. As you know, I work part-time at night and on Saturdays. My store, as we learned in a recent note to all employees from the CEO, is going to remain open. That means the time during the week that my day job has quarantined me in my own home is kind of pointless since I have to go out every weekend into the plague pit. 

Why? Why is it so important to keep the store open? The Metro is instructing people to only get on the train in the case of vital business. Is this really vital? How is it possible to maintain social distancing when you’re checking someone out at a cash register? What kind of person would risk getting infected and spreading it to get a countertop makeup organizer? I’ll tell you what kind of person—someone who doesn’t take proper precautions and is more likely to have the disease than someone who can wait to get their box of expensive hangers. 

The motto for my store is “Employees First,” but at the moment, that’s not feeling particularly sincere.

Coronavirus Homesick Blues

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I wasn’t taking this COVID-19 thing seriously for a long time. Conflicting reports kind of gathered together to make for an unconvincing disaster. Americans have a tendency to buy out all the toilet paper at the drop of a hat, and I had no reason to think that this was any different. I’m a (kind of) healthy person, and I have a really solid immune system. I don’t often get sick, and if I do, it’s for maybe a day.

And then something changed, and I’m not sure what. Maybe it was my day job going all telework. Maybe it was hearing about how much damage this disease was causing to the survivors. This isn’t just the flu (for which I vaccinate every fall).

But even then, what got me to start diligently washing my hands and stop going to coffee shops and stores (when I don’t have to go) was Nicole’s fear of it. We’re both gallows humor people, and we make constant jokes about dying from coronavirus, but in the jokes there is serious concern. So basically, I’m not worried about getting COVID-19, but I’m terrified of giving it to Nicole.

When this is all over, we’re going to take stock of what we did right and wrong, and I want to go to sleep knowing I did everything right. And when this is all over, it’s going to be tough to get used to wearing pants again.

IT Goes to Show

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The following is a dramatic interpretation of an actual email conversation.

ME: And that’s my problem.

IT: Have you tried turning it off and turning it back on?

ME: Yes, I have.

IT: Okay, but have you tried turning it off and then turning it back on again?

ME: That is literally the first thing I tried.

IT: Most software glitches can be solved by turning it off and then turning it back on again.

ME: That’s why I tried it first.

IT: Have you tried this thing I may have mentioned in passing once maybe a month ago?

ME: Okay, I’m trying it now, but I can’t seem to get it to do that thing.

IT: It will work if you do that thing.

ME: Look, I will send you screenshots. It is impossible for me to do that thing. See?

IT: Yep, this is complete unrelated to that thing. I don’t know why you’re doing that thing at all. Try this other thing I’ve never told you about before.

ME: It worked. Thank you.

IT: You should have started with that.

Workin’ for the Man Every Night and Day

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This morning, I accepted the position of Editorial Associate for Blood Journal at the American Society of Hematology, starting Monday, March 16. I’ve been looking in earnest for work since the end of January 2019, so this comes as a bit of a relief.

I’ve been temping at ASH for four months, but this wasn’t just a simple transition. I had to apply for this job and go through several rounds of interviews until I convinced them to bring me on. It probably didn’t hurt, though, that I am familiar with the publishing platform and have developed a good relationship with the Director of Editorial.

This changes everything. It means I can start thinking about things I haven’t thought of since 2018, like going to the dentist and eye doctor and taking vacations. It means that I don’t have to worry about what I’m going to do when my contract wears off. It means I no longer have to stockpile money to last between gigs. It means that, after all this time, I finally feel independent. It means I can finally exhale.

An Open Letter

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Dear Person with Clipboard,

I don’t want to talk to you. I don’t want to sign your form and give you my email. I don’t want to give you my money. I’m already registered to vote. I give money to the charities I support every month like clockwork. I’m sure you represent some fine organization with beliefs that I support, but you personally I find reprehensible.

As I approach, I don’t make eye contact. I am wearing earbuds. I’m charging fast, like a rhino. I am sending off vibes not to bother me. I literally use the words, “I don’t want to talk to you” when you get close. But that doesn’t stop you from shouting at me, from waving at me with both hands, from physically obstructing me so I have to duck and weave to get around you to get on the Metro and go to my second job. Do I need to wear a sign? Would you respect it if I did?

The next time you block my way to the Metro station, I’m going to keep walking in a straight line at top speed. Yes, it’s rude to knock people down, but it must take rudeness to combat rudeness because I’m all out of ideas.

You, clipboard person, are a blight on the urban life that I otherwise prize, and I’m demanding you stay away from me.

Best regards,
Jeremiah Murphy

Crushin’ It

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Confession time: I kind of have a crush. It’s no one you know, and it’s not someone I see often, but it’s a thing. I just know that whenever they wave me over to come talk to them, I want to impress them and follow them around all the time like Newcastle follows me around, telling them, “What you’re doing? Keep doing that.”  

This person is younger than me, so their language and priorities are different than mine, and that is endlessly fascinating to me. They’ve got an energy I can barely keep up with, but I want to try. I’m old enough and wise enough to know that this could not sustain itself much more than the encounters I have with them as it is. I don’t want a relationship with this person. Hell, I don’t have anything in common with them, but they still make my heart go all aflutter. When I’m around them, I feel more confident, more interesting, more fun, more special. They give me something to look forward to and daydream about, and a reason to sigh wistfully.  

It’s interesting having a crush when you have no sexual desire, but it’s actually way better. My feelings aren’t limited to wanting to see them naked or kiss them (they would probably snuggle like a pro, though, if I’m speculating). They don’t have to be “cute” for me to be into them. I’m interested in their personality, in what makes them what they are.  

If I’m being honest with myself, this is about the most impersonal relationship I can have with anyone, and that’s just the way I am now. I don’t want to make any time and energy commitments, and the last thing I need is a romance of any sort. A crush like this is a way to tick some boxes of my social needs without having to tick the boxes I don’t want.  

This doesn’t happen to me very often, so I prize it when it does, and I have no idea how long it’s going to last. I just know that I’m really enjoying it, and that’s absolutely perfect for this moment. 

Workplace Silence

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I just realized something about my day job. 

When everybody gathers around the water cooler to gossip, and they’re theorizing who’s going to snap and go on an office rampage with an AR-15, it’s me they’re talking about. 

This is because I’ve got a pretty stark resting bitch face, I don’t laugh much, but most importantly, I keep almost entirely to myself. I don’t generally say hello to anyone unless they say it first, and I don’t talk to people unless it’s work-related. To be fair, no one’s made an effort to connect with me, but I haven’t made an effort to reach out either. 

I’d call it social anxiety, but I don’t feel anxious about it at all. If I’m in a room or elevator alone with someone, I’m not crushed by the yawning chasm of silence. I’m actually pretty relieved I don’t have to have a conversation. I don’t need to talk to people. I don’t really know how. That’s not to say I can’t. I chat with my friends for hours, and when Nicole brings guests over, I hang out and have a great time. Also, there are people at my night job I really thrive around. But for the most part, human interaction baffles me. Therefore, here at the office, I don’t talk to anyone, and they don’t talk to me, and I’m happy as a clam. 

In a world geared toward extroverts, however, this makes me strange and unsettling. 

Write Down to the Nitty Gritty

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I was talking to a friend (I have those. Who knew, right?), and she had expressed some interest in my process for writing. I’ve declared before that I don’t do a lot of prep work to start a book, but going over my method, steps 1-5 of 8 are all prep work that I need to do before I get to the fun part (cracking open the notebook and letting the page dictate the story to me). My novels are mostly freeform, but I have a lot more control over them than I admit.  

tl;dr: I can write a novel in two months. This is how I do it. 

1) I want to make a novel about this particular hook. 

2) I need a main character. Default jumping-off point is a straight white guy. From here I some editing. First, the guy should be a woman. (I always do that. I like writing women. What can I say?) Next, does she have to be white? I consider the story possibilities—social, political, emotional—that can open up by writing about a black woman, or a Latina, or an Indian woman, and then I pick one. Next, does she have to be straight?* 

3) I do a little bit of research, if necessary, about the hook and how it relates to the main character’s race, gender, and sexuality. I don’t do this to make the research fit into the confines of the novel, but rather to let the research to take my idea and blossom it. There are ideas and directions I’d never considered that I find out about on Wikipedia.  

4) I look back on my life and I find moods, people, sensations, and events that fit into the world that is being created in my head. I pull details and emotions out of these memories and gift them to the new characters I’m creating.  

5) I stare off into space and think about all of this. If I have a cat, I pet the cat. 

6) I put pen to paper and write. The plot will magically reveal itself to me. 

7) I type what I wrote in my notebook and use the time to review my language or ideas. I catch a lot of mistakes this way. 

8) I wait a month or so after I finish my novel to go back over it. I consider themes and characters I introduced later in the book and see if I can introduce those earlier. I consider pacing. But mostly, I’m satisfied with what I’ve written.  

And that’s where a book comes from. Now, if I could figure out to do with them. 

* (Note that the two main characters in my last novel were white, which they had to be for the irony in the story to work properly. I had considered alternatives, but that’s what I figured would be best. One of them was a white guy, but at least he wasn’t heterosexual, so I give him a pass. The other was straight, but she was a woman. Ultimately, this was probably my most vanilla novel.) 

Smelling the Roses

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I made a post on Facebook the day I started my current novel: November 23. I wrote the final word in it yesterday. That’s three days shy of two months. The novel I finished before that was finished in a few days over two months. To which I say: For crying out loud, Jeremiah, slow down! It’s not a race. Writing is your hobby, not something you need to do in less time than it takes to form a habit. Slow down. Savor it. 

Here’s the hardest part. I want to be spending more time with my novels because (this is where most of my friends will think, “Yup, he’s lost it—all those years of solitude have really taken their toll”; my writer friends will think, “Yeah, that’s about right”) I get really attached to these characters. I like hanging out with them, I like learning how they think, I like hearing them talk. They never fail to surprise me. They’re alive, and now that I’m writing one-offs as opposed to a series, once I’m done with them, I’m done with them. They’re gone. It’s like a summer friendship, but shorter, and without the pen-palling.  

It will be a few days before I start my next one. I’ve got the slightest glimmer of an idea, but nothing I can build on just yet. My hope is that I can pace myself this time. There’s no rush.