Cat Burglar

Posted on November 8, 2019 by Jeremiah Murphy

Somebody stole my cat. Somebody I trusted. This was a friend, a confidant, and my roommate. And there’s nothing I can do about it.

The cat burglar was able to pull off the heist by virtue of being more charming than I am. For starters, she talks to the babies, constantly. She doesn’t really say anything, she just calls them by the nicknames she’s given them and asks them the same question over and over again. She also sings, usually some old, familiar number with her nicknames replacing random lyrics—seriously, she removes all coherence from the songs. Most importantly, she plays with them. Between my long double-shifts and eagerness to write, coupled with my impatience at the way they’ll just sit there and stare at mousey-mouse, I don’t take the little toy out and tease them very much. Nicole will sense when they’re at maximum energy and go to town.

So now Newcastle spends as much time with her as he does with me, sometimes even more. It’s clear he likes her better. I always took my cats for granted, seeing them as passive pets, and now I’m paying the price. And so I’m going to give her the $800.00 vet bill Newcastle just incurred and wipe my hands of the little traitor. She owns my cat now, but at least she lets me visit him.

Revision Quest

Posted on November 7, 2019 by Jeremiah Murphy

“How would you do it?” asks the woman who is showing me the ropes. “Why don’t you give it a try?”

And so I return to my desk and spend a while coming up with a two-sentence blurb about our new podcast, featuring the phrase, “… a companion to the journal.” I send it back to her, and she says, “This is perfect, run it past the boss.” This is going to take a while. If I’ve learned anything these past five days, it’s that the boss is a reviser, almost pathologically so. Obviously it got her where it got her, so I have to keep that in mind, but I was prepared for some back-and-forth that would go on for hours.

About forty-five minutes later, the boss props herself up on my desk and states, “Here’s the thing. It’s not a ‘companion.’ We need another word.”

“Supplement?” I suggest.

“No, it’s not a supplement either.” She then lists all of the reasons that the podcast doesn’t qualify as a supplement.

“So what is it then?” I ask.

She then proceeds to give me a perfect, literal definition of a companion podcast and concludes with, “See? Not a companion.” Since I couldn’t think of any other word, especially given her explanation, we agreed just to remove the offending phrase altogether. The rest of the blurb went in unmolested.

I say this without irony or snark—I think I’m going to fall in love with this job.

M-Word

Posted on November 6, 2019 by Jeremiah Murphy

I was talking to my boss today, and I referred to the medical journal she’s in charge of as a magazine. The room went quiet. Everybody froze, until they all turned and trained their eyes on me. The piano player stopped playing. A record scratched. “We don’t use that word here,” I was informed. “Never, ever use that word.”

If you want a good picture of what happened, imagine if I had dropped the N-word in the middle of an NAACP meeting.

All by Myself

Posted on November 5, 2019 by Jeremiah Murphy

In my life, aside from my Facebook friends, I have three people I call my good friends. Two of them I see about once every other month, and the other is my roommate, who I see, if I’m lucky, once a week. I have two jobs where I interact with people regularly, and I have warmer relationships with some and simply professional relationships with others. During my time off, what little of it I get these days, I spend it writing, going for walks in the city, watching movies, and because he absolutely insists, cuddling with my cat. Someone recently expressed concern that I was lonely.

I’m not. This is how I want my life to be. Maybe not working sixty-plus hours a week, but otherwise, like this. Writing is my passion. It means more to me than anything, and it’s a solitary pursuit. Also, I want to watch whatever dumb movie I want to watch without having to negotiate with anyone else. Walking in the city is something that can be done with others, and when she’s available, Nicole does it with me, and we have a great time. I like talking to people and hanging out, but I don’t need to, and after a run of long days at two jobs, I don’t particularly want to.

I think maybe people overestimate the time Kate and I spent together. Toward the end of our marriage, I saw her for, at the most, an hour a day, and she used that time to check Facebook and play Charmed in the background. I was lonely for a long time with her—I didn’t have any friends at all when we were together—and I eventually grew to enjoy my own company. I’d been pretty solitary before that, even during my most social (2002-2003), and by this point with Kate, I had become a hermit. Not all of that has gone away. I don’t want it to.

And so, if you want to hang out, that’s great. I love hanging out with you. If you don’t have the time, that’s too bad, but don’t worry, I’ll be fine. I now have some extra time to work on what I think is the best novel I’ve written so far.

In short, I may be alone most of the time, but I’m not lonely. Not even a little bit.

Paranoid

Posted on October 22, 2019 by Jeremiah Murphy

I’ve come down with a bad case of paranoia.

Something I’ve learned from nine months of job searching is that, if it looks too good to be true, it’s probably a scam. And so much about this job looks too good to be true. I won’t go into all the details because I’ll make myself crazy, but the crux is this: I was recruited to apply for a job I’m only marginally qualified for, and less than fifteen minutes after an interview I was positive I’d bombed, they offered me the job. That kind of thing doesn’t happen to me. It happens to exceptional people, and I’m not exceptional. (Some of you may want to argue with me on this point because you’re really sweet, but really, I’m not, and that’s okay.)

It doesn’t look like a scam. The recruiting agency is real, and the recruiter herself has a page on LinkedIn (where she found me) that doesn’t look like it was put up on the fly. The company I interviewed is real, and there was nothing artificial about the office. (But still, Jeremiah, the job offer came from the recruiter, not the employer. Yes, Jeremiah, that’s how staffing agencies work—you’ve done work for four of them in the past six months, and it’s always like this. But she got the offer when I was on the phone with her, Jeremiah—that doesn’t happen. Good point, Jeremiah.)

I’m losing my mind. So I ask you, how can I just relax until my (alleged) start date next Thursday? How can I trust that this one thing is actually working out for me? Help!

Interview with the Temp

Posted on October 22, 2019 by Jeremiah Murphy

I had a job interview this morning, and unlike most job interviews, it was pretty clear what they thought of me as it went on. This is how it went: I was seen by one person who asked me questions and described the job. She went downstairs to get her boss. Fifteen minutes later, her boss sits down with my resume and says, for real, “I’ll be honest, I’m not sure what you’re doing here.” She says that my editing background is solid and tells me all the ways this isn’t an editing job for about ten minutes before she lets me explain that I wasn’t there as an editor. She then brings me to her associate who is not sure he fully understands my jump from editing to administrative work.

After they send me on my way, I call the recruiter who set up the interview and tell her how disappointed I am. Had they not seen my resume before calling me in? This was kind of a waste of my time. The recruiter told me to hold, her boss was on the line, and when she returned, she told me that was the job asking when I could start.

It was quite the roller coaster this morning.

Total Recall

Posted on October 16, 2019 by Jeremiah Murphy

I have ADD, and it’s really bad. If I wasn’t taking a steady dose of time-release methylphenidate, I’d be like the guy from Memento. It’s bad enough that I got disability from the government for a while. And even with the drugs, and with the endless rituals and reminders I need to function, whole conversations, events, and important details simply don’t implant themselves in my brain.

People don’t have a lot of patience for this, especially people I’ve been married to (who were more than happy to cash the checks when they came, but never to answer my questions). Nobody likes to repeat themselves, I get it, but I’m not asking you twice because I’m a flake or because I smoked too much pot or because I’m lazy, or even for fun. I can’t fake a functioning memory like I can fake a smile when I’m depressed. This is a serious medical condition.

Do you have any idea how frustrating it is knowing you should know something, but it not being there? It’s like having a word on the tip of your tongue but you can’t quite remember what it is, but on a grander scale. When you add in the dread of someone I care for biting my head off because I had to ask something twice, this is really awful.

All I can do is do my rituals and reminders and take my meds and try to not be annoying when I ask for clarification. I don’t really have a choice if I want to function in society.

I’m just tired.

Phantom Vapors

Posted on August 29, 2019 by Jeremiah Murphy

I have been smelling a phantom, hallucinatory scent for about two years. It smells like someone mixed gas and barbecue sauce together and set it on fire. It’s pretty rare, maybe once or twice a month for an hour, so I didn’t think much of it, but I told my psychiatrist about it a few months ago. He did a ton of research and crossed the medications I’m taking off of the possible causes, and he has referred me to a neurologist, who I will be seeing next month.

I’m not worried about having a tumor or anything. Like I said, it’s so infrequent that I barely even think it’s a thing. What I am worried about is cost. If I’m prescribed an MRI, how the hell am I supposed to afford that? I don’t have a steady job (but I still make too much for Medicaid), and my insurance is garbage.

I allegedly live in the greatest country in the world with a health care system that I have been assured by those in power is also the best in the world, yet a procedure that would be a minor inconvenience to a Canadian or anyone from Europe is cost-prohibitive. If I do have a tumor, I’m screwed.

My appointment is September 16. What happens after that is up in the air. God bless the USA.

Fecal Matters

Posted on July 25, 2019 by Jeremiah Murphy

I saw a bumper sticker that says, “Honk if you have to POOP.” It has me asking questions.

For example, if you honk, just what is that driver going to do with that information? Is it strictly a solidarity thing? Are they recording your license plate number and selling it to marketers? Also, if you don’t have to poop, but the poop driver is texting and the light turns green, do you refrain from honking so you don’t give them the wrong idea?

Lots of important stuff to think about here. I’m glad I took the bus.

A Mirror Dorkly

Posted on July 10, 2019 by Jeremiah Murphy

I’m almost exclusively an Order Processor here in the DC Container Store, and from what I’ve observed about all of the Order Processors I’ve met here, they’re all pretty weird. They’re all quiet and focused, and when they do say something (that isn’t business), it tends to be random. They have zero control over their hair, and they’re socially awkward.

And before you say anything, yes, I know I’m describing myself. It’s nice that I fit in somewhere.

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