Man Oh Man

I never refer to the dudes I date as boys. I’m not in 7th grade. I date guys. Or at least I thought I did. Yesterday I was asked out by a man and I said yes. I don’t know if I’m ready for this.

I’m not exactly sure when guys become men, but once they do, there’s no turning back. I was a young woman at 18 and probably transitioned to full on woman at about 25. At least in my own mind. But guys take their sweet time becoming men, and I’m not sure if I’m happy about that or not.

It’s hard to pinpoint exactly what makes this man a man. He’s 40, so the age helps, but there are plenty of 40 year olds that wouldn’t make it to the man category. It’s not that he’s not age appropriate. It’s not that he’s not fairly hip- he has a great sense of humor and has an awareness of what’s going on around him. He’s got a full head of hair, young looking skin, and a doesn’t own a home. But there’s something about him that leads me to believe that if he ever sleeps over, he’ll bring his black leather toiletries bag with him.

He exudes a certain friendly confidence that says, “I sometimes wear a sleep mask at night and you will just have to deal.” It’s the same friendly confidence that says he might own maroon poly blend dress socks, drink manhattans and have no shame about his baseball card collection. It’s a confidence he wears as comfortably as he wears his navy blue terrycloth robe and brown slippers.

But the great thing about dating a man, is that they cut right to the damn chase. None of this “does he like me, or doesn’t he” crap. An evening of friendly conversation at an event was followed by an email the next day in which he asked me out. There was no need for me to put this email through the great female analyzation machine. He asked me out and that was that.

Maybe the thing that makes a man a man is the confidence. He’s not cocky. He just knows what he likes and wants and doesn’t apologize for it. Maybe 18 year old dudes would be wearing terrycloth robes if they weren’t so self conscious. Cause really- they just make good sense on a cold winter morning.

The beauty is that no matter if I date a boy, or a guy, or a man, there is one thing that doesn’t change. Fear of commitment. No matter what the age, level of confidence or fashion sense, a gal can always count on a guy to be terrified of commitment. But at least if I’m dating a man, in the midst of one of the inevitable cyclical relationship discussions that leave me with a pounding headache, I know I can find some aspirin in his black leather toiletry bag.

Temporary Insanity, Part 4

The last of my temping adventures in San Francisco...


The next job was assisting with a health lawyers conference. As instructed, I reported to the Marriott in downtown San Francisco on Saturday afternoon. After being sent around to a number of different rooms, I finally located the conference registration table, where I would spend the next three days. I was greeted with a few grunts from the Conference staff and after asking a few questions, I pieced together my job responsibilities. As far as I could tell from the minimal information I was given, my job was to hand out registration packets to people as they approached the desk. Thankfully, Thomas, my partner in registration, appeared. He was the gay co-temp Heather and I had wished for during our FoFo days. Just minutes passed before Thomas and I began a running commentary on the conference attendees, including outfits, personality disorders, and who had the nicest ass.

Just as the evening started to get really boring, people began setting up for a wedding across the hall. A guy approached the registration desk and I immediately said, “Hi…your last name please.”

“Uh,” he stammered, “I was just wondering if I could borrow tape and scissors.”

“Sure. How long do you need it for?” I asked.

“Well, I’m going to that wedding over there and still need to wrap the gift.”

Thomas and I wielded our registration table authority and allowed the guy to hide behind the registration table and wrap his gift. I’ve never seen it take someone half an hour to wrap a present, but I think our analysis of health lawyers and wedding attendees was slowing him down. Wedding present wrapper guy finally finished up his work, invited us to the reception and was on his way. Suddenly Thomas and I became the information booth for the wedding. In between greeting health lawyers from across the country, we fielded all sorts of wedding related requests. A pack of martial artists who were performing at the reception asked where they could practice. Not having any real clue, we set them up in an empty conference room down the hall. The bride’s brother showed up late so we snuck him in the back door during the Korean dance performance. Finally, the bridal party lined up in the hallway and paraded into the reception hall as Kool in the Gang demanded that everyone celebrate good times. We celebrated the fact that our workday was over.

I parked my car at 6:15am on Sunday morning and was picking the sleep from my eyes as packs of drunk people poured out of bars cheering. I had a hard time comprehending that anyone else was awake at 6:15 on Sunday morning, let alone that they were so happy about it. Eventually I pieced it all together. Aside from the contingency of hardcore alcoholics, most of the happy folks filling the streets were celebrating the fact that Brazil had just won the World Cup. Well yippee for Brazil. I wanted to celebrate with a nice long nap.

With Sunday came the return of Thomas and the addition of Alaina. Alaina, with her long bleached blonde hair, Britney Spears cleavage and twenty-one year old flirty personality brought a whole new flavor to the registration table. Seeing as we had practically nothing to do, I didn’t mind listening to Alaina’s endless stories about her boyfriend Marco and all the other guys that she had a crush on. Thomas, Alaina and I could not have been more different but the three of us entertained each other for the next twelve hours. At one point, there were a few lawyers waiting for their nametags to be printed up and Thomas and Alaina attempted to entertain them with jokes. The jokes were fairly dumb but, in my sleep-deprived opinion, worthy of at least a chuckle. Obviously the lawyers disagreed. I chimed in, “Hey guys…I thought of a joke. How do you make a lawyer laugh?”

Alaina and Thomas in unison, “I don’t know…how?”

“Apparently you can’t.” As expected, the hardy guffaws of the temps were met with lawyer silence.

“Can you please watch this for me for a while?” a woman asked as she placed a life sized bronze ferret on the table. It was the much-coveted “Golden Ferret” award. This was the award given to the lawyer with the kookiest case of the year and was named after the woman who defended a doctor attacked by a patient’s pet ferret. It didn’t take long for the ferret to become our new pal. Not only was having a life sized ferret standing on its hind legs a conversation piece, the ferret was great at saying what we were too afraid to say. Whenever any of us wanted to say something obnoxious, we just picked up the ferret and mustering about our best ventriloquist skills, had the ferret say it for us. Since everyone at the conference secretly or not so secretly wanted their name to be added to the list of Golden Ferret awardees, they just laughed at whatever the ferret said. “What’s that, Ferret?” Alaina asked when a stuffy guy stood in silence after she spent fifteen minutes helping him.
Thomas immediately shrunk down behind the table, and uttered, in the voice of a ferret if a ferret could talk, “Ferrets like it when people say please and thank you!”

The guy looked around and then said, “Uh…thanks.”

When a particularly grumpy gentleman was having trouble figuring out what seminars he had signed up for, the ferret said, “Ferret thinks you should consider attending the seminar in conference room 10 called, “Show us your pearlies!” The fun thing about people with no sense of humor is that they have no idea when you’re making fun of them.

I stepped outside for lunch and entered an alternate universe. Market Street was packed with people cheering as a float went by, carrying a slew of men in leather chaps. Ah….such a refreshing change of pace from life behind the registration table. I spent my lunch hour walking down the street taking in the many glorious sites and sounds of San Francisco’s Gay Pride Parade. Rainbow flags, happy gay families, men wearing pink angel wings, and dykes on bikes were just a few of the highlights. I stopped to get a slice of pizza and overhead a guy on his cell phone, gay pride emanating from his every word, “Hey! It’s me…I’m at Pride. Wish you were here. I hope you’re loving the new Michael J. Fox book as much as I did! Love you! Bye!” I leaned against the outside of the pizza place and people watched as I ate my pizza. There was an old homeless guy sitting next to me. As a cable car full of dancing men wearing nothing but fluorescent speedos cruised by, he looked over at me, took a drag from his cigarette and said with a smile, “God bless America!” Amen to that.

The final three days at the health lawyers conference were spent “monitoring” seminars. This meant passing out evaluations, doing a head count of attendees, and collecting evaluations. In other words, my entire job could have been done by two boxes, one that said, “Please take an evaluation” and one that said, “Please return evaluations here.” But this way I got to sit in on fascinating seminars about tax law and medical code updates. During the breaks, the temps would all meet and get the latest information on Alaina’s drama with Diego, the conference attendee from Puerto Rico. For some reason, she was surprised that he wanted to have sex with her, after she spent the day with him, let him buy her a hundred dollar jacket, made out with him in the cab and then went back to his hotel room. After I questioned whether she was serving herself up some crack with a side of dumbass, she whined, “What happened to people just enjoying each other’s company?”

“When he’s a middle aged guy in the country for a weekend conference and you and your twenty-one year old firm boobs agreed to go back to his hotel room, then I think it was fairly clear that he expected to enjoy your company. If by company, you mean hooch.”

“You crack me up, Mary!” Alaina said while laughing hysterically.

“That’s good. But I’m not kidding.”

I gave up on trying to make sense of Alaina’s love life and switched to one of our other favorite conversations, which was developing the life stories of various attendees including “Mr. I’m too sexy for my bowtie”, “Dennis the Menace Boy” and “ Fun Aussie Woman.” That took us right to the end of the day and the end of our time at the Marriott. Alaina demanded that we exchange phone numbers and we hugged happily with the knowledge that we had next to nothing in common and would most likely never see each other again.

As the BART train sped me back to the East Bay, I reflected on the previous ten months of my life. Although I yearned for a full-time job, life as an office temp had given me a great introduction to California. The stereotype of the state being a wacky place to live may be correct. But, I had to admit, that’s what I like about it. And that’s why California is growing on me like pot grows in Upstairs Mark’s apartment. The co-workers, bosses, fellow BART riders…these are the people in my neighborhood. May I never again take for granted the lessons learned from Sesame Street.

Helen

I just found out that Helen, a fantastic woman who was one of the elders I got to know at my old job, died. She was 84. Here’s a little bit that involves Helen, from something I wrote about my old job a while back. It was just one simple afternoon spent among friends, but it was the kind of afternoon that I’ll always remember.


It was with great joy that Cristin, Gina and I agreed to go to tea at Ben’s house. Ben invited us over to share stories and pictures of is trip to France with Helen and Joe. The organization I worked for sponsored a two-week trip to France and 92 year old Ben and 83 year old Helen went, accompanied by Joe, our star volunteer.

From his crisp cardigans to his perfectly combed white hair, Ben is sharp. His zest for life, subtle sense of humor and Polish accent continue to lure in the ladies. It is hard to detect from his warm smile the difficulty that Ben has endured. Ben survived the Holocaust, but his first wife and son did not. A tailor by trade, Ben picked up painting in his retirement. It is through his artwork that Ben has found a way to express his suffering and survival. Helen, a native of Boston, is vivacious, self-deprecating and simply put, hilarious. The traveling trio was made complete by Joe, whose easy-going demeanor, kind heart and appreciation for people of all kinds, made him the perfect travel partner.

The six of us, ranging in age from 23 to 93, gathered around Ben’s dining room table set with fine china, in his elegantly and comfortably decorated home in the Sunset district of San Francisco. As the travelers shared entertaining stories of their trip, including miscommunications due to their lack of French knowledge, the pilgrimage to Lourdes, and descriptions of their new companions from across the world, Ben kept our cups full with deliciously brewed coffee and fed us homemade fruit salad and danish. When recounting their bus ride to Lourdes and how out of place the three of them felt, Helen shouted in her thick Boston accent, “There we were…two heathens and a Jew…going to Lourdes!” Ben showed us each photo, careful to point out all the women he found attractive. Ben said he wished he spoke French because he spotted an attractive woman and wanted to tell her that she dressed well for a woman of her size. Let’s hope that would’ve gotten lost in translation. “There’s that woman that danced on the table,” Joe remarked while flipping through pictures. Ben grabbed the photo, slowly nodding his head as he smiled and said, “She did a nice job.”


The world is definitely a better place for having had Helen in it. I still find myself quoting her, with that great Boston accent full of charm and life, when something shocks me. “It’s inSAAAAHHnity!!!” I had the pleasure of sharing Helen’s 82nd birthday with her. We were on a trip to the California coast with a group of about 12 people. After celebrating with cake and singing, Helen kicked my ass at Uno, making fun of me the whole time. Helen is an example of how a great sense of humor will get you through hard times, and that when it comes to appreciating table dancers, being willing to take risks, seize opportunities, and laugh at the little things, age ain’t nuthin but a number.

Temporary Insanity, Part 3

Part 3 of my adventures in temping in SF...

After that little stint, I was offered a job, expected to last about a month, in which I’d the Executive Assistant to the CEO of a tech company in downtown San Fran. I was looking forward to a month of stability. What I wound up with was a month of living hell. It started out okay. As soon as I got off the shaky elevator that made scary rumbling noises, I met Joyce. She was the very meek, soft-spoken human resources woman who had conducted the phone interview. That’s right- a temp job that required a phone interview in which Joyce was much more nervous than I. Joyce showed me to my desk, where I would spend the day “training “ with temporary employment’s answer to Nicole Kidman, complete with long strawberry blonde hair, porcelain skin and an Aussie accent. The boss was not in that day so I spent my time reviewing Sharon’s uber organizational style in action and watching numerous guys walk past the desk and drool while having their less than subtle “Eyes Wide Shut” fantasies.

It seemed that my main responsibilities were answering Raul’s phone, managing his schedule and taking minutes at meetings. The next day was my first official day on the job. I “pulled in the phone line” as I was specifically instructed to do twelve times the day before, and it immediately started to ring. “Get me Mike!” said a voice with a thick Columbian accent. Fortunately I interpreted that correctly to mean “please transfer me to Mike.” Because I had eight hours of training, most of which were focused on how to use the phone, I was able to accomplish that task successfully on the first try. Most of the day was spent fielding the zillions of calls coming in on Raul’s line- all of which were from Raul himself. Many were demands that I transfer him to someone, some were requests to check and re-check his barren schedule, and others were just unintelligible ramblings on a variety of topics. At one point he called me to chat about the job and my responsibilities. I told him that my focus was on non-profit Program Development and he quickly ignored me, which I later learned was one of his favorite pastimes. “I think you will begin to really like it here,” he said. I reiterated that I was temping and saw this as a short-term position and he interrupted me to say, “Yes…like I am saying, you will learn a lot from working here and I think you will find it to be very interesting.” Well, he was right. I learned a lot. I learned about what it’s like to work with Satan and it sure was interesting.

It was not until my fourth day that I finally got to meet Raul. He was exactly as I had expected with his medium height, beer belly and thick black hair with a number of grays to represent his self-induced stress. He appeared slightly frazzled, between his tousled hair and his Brooks Brothers shirt popping out of the back of his pants. Most people in the company either feared or hated Raul. Either way, when word got out that he was in the office, everyone hid at their desks like hermits. I was still of the idealistic temp mentality thinking, “How bad can this guy be?” I walked into his office and introduced myself. “Oh Mary! Hello!” Raul said while spinning around in his chair and furiously chewing a piece of gum. We exchanged pleasantries and I thought, “This guy isn’t too bad.” I got back to my desk, and Anna, who sat next to me, whispered, “Beware. He’s always nice at first.”

The previous day, when Raul was out of the office and I had done all the scheduling and phone answering required of me, I got online to check my email. The CFO walked by and whispered, “Hey Mare…don’t ever let Raul see you online. He’ll freak out.” I said, “Okay…but he’s out of town. Plus, I have asked everyone if they need help with anything and the answer has been no. So, when I have nothing to do am I supposed to just stare at the carpeted walls of my cubicle?” There was silence and a nervous grin that seemed to say, “Yes. That is what we do here.” So after introducing myself to Raul, I returned to my desk and did my best “pretend to be doing work” paper shuffle.

“Come with me!” Raul yelled.

“I guess he was talking to you, Mary.” Anna said as we both watched him walk down the hall. I followed him and it turned out that it was time to take minutes at a meeting. This was the first of many meetings in which parts of my brain actually leaked out of my eyes because I was straining so hard to make sense of what was being said. Ironically, I began to make sense of the techie jargon being thrown around and became fluent in computer programming acronyms. It was Raul’s inability to stick with one point that resulted in a room full of scrunched up foreheads that seemed to say, “Dude…what the hell are you talking about?” Things inevitably got worse when Raul decided it was time to use the wipey board to demonstrate his non-point in picture form. It became like a game of Pictionary where people were shouting out guesses as to what he may have been talking about. “Oh…I get it…that’s the workplan diagram for the CDQ project!” “No!” said another; “I think it’s what he was trying to talk about at last week’s meeting about the RDIG.” In one of his Win, Lose or Draw frenzies, he went to use a marker that didn’t work. He did what any professional CEO would do and threw it across the room and yelled at me, “We need markers! Get me markers!” After confirming his insanity from the exasperated shaking heads around me, I said,
“Before I look for other markers, maybe you could try one from the box of markers that is right next to you.”

Raul’s insistence on believing what he wanted to believe coupled with his inability to listen sometimes resulted in comedy. “Call Columbia and set up a meeting for this afternoon” he insisted.

“As I’ve said before, I don’t speak any Spanish. I can track down someone who does though.”

“No…you can do it. They speak a little English like you speak a little Spanish” he said, with an increased level of frustration in his voice.

“That would mean that they can count to ten in English, because that’s the extent of my Spanish.”

“It’s fine, just call them” Raul demanded.

After practically needing to hire a private detective to locate that number that Raul insisted would be easy to find, I made the call. The end result was about five minutes of mucho miscommunication followed by me saying “uh…un momento” and shouting over my cubicle, “Does anyone around here speak Spanish?” Someone graciously came to my rescue. After the call was finally confirmed, Raul said to me, “I want you in on that conference call.” I couldn’t help but laugh when I said, “Okay…but I don’t speak any Spanish.”

As I predicted, he said, “No…it will be fine. Just be on the call. I need you to take minutes.”
The following day I was on a conference call between Raul and Max. Raul was doing most of the talking and I couldn’t seem to make sense of anything that was being said. I attributed my confusion to the fact that this was an involved project that was new to me. My plan was to talk with Max afterwards and try to get a clear description of what was being done. Raul finally stopped talking and said, “Okay…so we’re all clear…everyone knows what needs to be done. Okay” and hung up before either of us could comment. As soon as I hung up the phone it rang again. “Hi Mary…It’s Max. What the hell just happened?”

“Let’s review Max…you’ve worked with Raul for twenty years. I’ve worked with him for six days. I have absolutely no clue what the hell just happened.”

Max started laughing, “I’m just glad he’s dragged someone else into this…so at least I’m not the only one who doesn’t know what he’s talking about. I guess if he expects either of us to do something we’ll hear it from him. Then we can just call each other and figure out what the hell it might be.” What a functional plan.

When I first began the job, Raul reiterated his reiterations on the fact that email was the best way to inform him of things. Since he was often on the road, I should email him his schedule every evening and every morning. One morning, before my butt had even hit the chair, the phone rang. My day began with the following greeting, “You can no just email me! That is not good! Sometimes I can’t check my computer. You should just know my schedule! What am I doing today? GO!”

“Most likely the same as yesterday…a bunch of useless meetings you’ve scheduled to make yourself look important” I thought. By this point, I was getting more and more fed up but had realized trying to explain reality to this man was a waste of time. However, it was some consolation that his craziness was not directed at me. I had escaped his wackiness for a few days while traveling east for a friend’s wedding. Word in the office was that he missed me and was even meaner to the temp who replaced me. Upon her arrival, she walked into his office to introduce herself and was met with, “Don’t come in here unless I ask for you!” Apparently he had worn his very grumpy pants that day, because then she was screamed at for reminding him of a meeting eight minutes ahead of time as opposed to the required five minute warning time.

Raul was a big fan of starting up trouble right before I was scheduled to leave. One night I was just getting ready to shut down my computer, when I heard, “I need you to redo this spreadsheet! I can no compare the prices for these companies!” I tried to explain that the reason he was having a difficult time comparing prices was because the prices did not exist yet. According to the email, to which this spreadsheet was attached, someone was going to call for prices the next day. “Just change it so I can compare!” I quickly redid the spreadsheet so he was unable to compare prices in a different way, and got right out of there.

“We need to talk about you being proactive!” Raul shouted when I picked up the phone. By this point, I knew that “we” meant “he”, so I just waited for his tirade to kick in. “When I send you emails that say “remind me about this” I don’t expect you to just remind me!”

“So you mean, in today’s email that said, “remind me about the presentation tomorrow…you’d like me to actually put that presentation together?” I asked, politely leaving out the “you friggin crackhead.”

“Yes! Remind does not just mean remind!” he shouted.

Seeing as no one in the company had the information to prepare that presentation, I was fairly confident that expecting the new temp to put it together was a little ridiculous. But I just said, “Okay. I think there was a communication breakdown regarding our differing definitions of the word remind. Just let me know what you want me to do.” But of course, he had hung up before I finished speaking.

“That man is a fucking lunatic” Anna said nonchalantly as she chucked me a hard candy. “First of all, he’s not smart. But I also think he may actually be crazy and that doesn’t help either.”

After about a month of being continuously yelled at for tons of ridiculous reasons, I decided that I could take no more. I called the temp agency and told them that I was at the end of my rope. After explaining my plight to one of the employees, it was decided that this was a situation for the head honcho. I scheduled a meeting with the owner of the agency. Aside from watching her Christmas party dance routine, my last interaction with Jocelyn was when I had gone into the agency to pick up a check and she uttered the phrase, “Isn’t it great to be in a job where you don’t have to support a wardrobe!?” So I was looking forward to her perspective on Raul. After explaining the situation in detail, Jocelyn’s head nodding in amazement the entire time, she said, “Okay…it’s clear that you should not work there anymore. And it’s also clear that someone needs to tell this guy off. That person is you.”

I had to admit I liked what I was hearing. I wasn’t sure if I’d actually be able to say what I’d imagined saying to him, but I was intrigued. So Jocelyn and I strategized various ways to do it and then settled on the email. I agreed that the rest of my afternoon would be spent constructing an email telling him what a wretched person he was. The subject, like those that I wrote him each night with his calendar attached would be “Reminders.” I would hit send immediately before leaving and never return. I went back to the office and drafted an email which I sent to Jocelyn:

Raul,

I am writing to inform you that today is my last day. I hope that you'll take the time to read this explanation of why I am leaving. I believe that you want to be a good person, but the way you treat me and everyone else in this company has created a toxic work environment. I am a smart and capable person, and I do not appreciate nor will I tolerate the lack of respect you
show me and everyone else.

Perhaps no one else ever told you about the extremely negative way you come off to others. You do not listen when others are speaking and this seems to create lots of unnecessary confusion and frustration. There is an office full of very smart, capable and professional individuals here, most of whom probably feel that they are not in a position to voice their needs and
frustrations.

For the sake of this company and the person who may follow me in this position as well as the many great people who work here, but more importantly, for your success as a good human being, I hope that you will take my words to heart.

Sincerely,
Mary

The social worker in me found it to be a perfect blend of honesty and condescension. The phone rang minutes later, “Mary! We love it! I gathered everyone in my office and read it out loud. You’re the greatest!”

Kim, my usual contact at the temp agency called me as soon as I hung up with Jocelyn. “Wow Mary…you’re so awesome! We promise we’ll put you in a better job right away! In fact, there’s a job working in the Mayor’s office next week. The people are great and it’d be a much better atmosphere. Are you interested in that?”

“Sure”, I say, mustering up as much enthusiasm as possible. “What will I be doing?”

“Helping out with a fundraiser they’re planning. It’d be right up your alley!”

Apparently my alley leads to a dark and dirty room in the bowels of some unknown building near City Hall. I finally made my way through the maze of hallways and read the note on the door, “Temps…I have a meeting that’s running late. I’ll be here at 9:30. There’s a Starbucks on the corner.” Uh…okay. Maybe Starbucks was now inserting chips in people so that they would randomly provide free advertising for them. “Hi…I’d like ten dollars of gas on pump 12. And Starbucks Caramel Frappacinos are a delicious blend of creamy flavor and pizzazz.” I killed the next half-hour by sitting in the little park down the street and staring at a group of people doing Tai Chi. Then, on my way back to my alley, I had the pleasure of watching some woman try to pry out one of her slutty stiletto heels from the sidewalk grate in which it was stuck.

The walls of the small dark room were painted with the ultra attractive “Dirty Eggshell” circa 1974. In the room were six desks, with a phone on each one. The place reeked of telemarketing. My five fellow temps and I filed in and took seats at the desks. We’d spend the next five days calling people to determine if they were planning on attending, a fundraiser the mayor was having called “Breakfast with the Gov.” For eight hours a day we ran through the same script over and over again. After a while we each developed our own personal “Breakfast with the Gov” solicitation style. Carla took to hanging up in the middle of a call if the person was getting on her nerves. Jason’s style was more of the “realize that everyone else was actually making calls, so I can just sit here and play games on my cell phone” variety. After intense boredom set it, the dares began. “I dare ya to say, instead of RSVP, ‘respondez vous si vous plait’.” “I dare ya to use an English accent on the next call.” “Next call….Moviefone guy’s voice.”

“Oh my God,” Jason said with exasperation oozing from his soul. “I just saw a spider walk out of here because it was so bored.”

“I know,” I said. “And I heard it singing “It’s too Late Baby Now” by Carole King on it’s way out. Must’ve been from all the Muzac it’s heard today.”

“Hi…This is Mary calling from the Mayor’s office,” I said for the zillionth time.

“Hold on!” said the voice of a crotchety old man. “TV too loud! Hearing aids too low!” Seconds later he returned, “Now what the heck can I do ya for?” Half an hour later Joe Thompson and I were still chit chatting about life, the Mayor, television and the many changes he’s seen in San Francisco over the decades. Joe Thompson beat out practically nothing to earn the title of “my favorite thing about inviting people to “Breakfast with the Gov.”

Temporary Insanity, Part 4

The next job was assisting with a health lawyers conference. As instructed, I reported to the Marriott in downtown San Francisco on Saturday afternoon. After being sent around to a number of different rooms, I finally located the conference registration table, where I would spend the next three days. I was greeted with a few grunts from the Conference staff and after asking a few questions, I pieced together my job responsibilities. As far as I could tell from the minimal information I was given, my job was to hand out registration packets to people as they approached the desk. Thankfully, Thomas, my partner in registration, appeared. He was the gay co-temp Heather and I had wished for during our FoFo days. Just minutes passed before Thomas and I began a running commentary on the conference attendees, including outfits, personality disorders, and who had the nicest ass.

Just as the evening started to get really boring, people began setting up for a wedding across the hall. A guy approached the registration desk and I immediately said, “Hi…your last name please.”

“Uh,” he stammered, “I was just wondering if I could borrow tape and scissors.”

“Sure. How long do you need it for?” I asked.

“Well, I’m going to that wedding over there and still need to wrap the gift.”

Thomas and I wielded our registration table authority and allowed the guy to hide behind the registration table and wrap his gift. I’ve never seen it take someone half an hour to wrap a present, but I think our analysis of health lawyers and wedding attendees was slowing him down. Wedding present wrapper guy finally finished up his work, invited us to the reception and was on his way. Suddenly Thomas and I became the information booth for the wedding. In between greeting health lawyers from across the country, we fielded all sorts of wedding related requests. A pack of martial artists who were performing at the reception asked where they could practice. Not having any real clue, we set them up in an empty conference room down the hall. The bride’s brother showed up late so we snuck him in the back door during the Korean dance performance. Finally, the bridal party lined up in the hallway and paraded into the reception hall as Kool in the Gang demanded that everyone celebrate good times. We celebrated the fact that our workday was over.

I parked my car at 6:15am on Sunday morning and was picking the sleep from my eyes as packs of drunk people poured out of bars cheering. I had a hard time comprehending that anyone else was awake at 6:15 on Sunday morning, let alone that they were so happy about it. Eventually I pieced it all together. Aside from the contingency of hardcore alcoholics, most of the happy folks filling the streets were celebrating the fact that Brazil had just won the World Cup. Well yippee for Brazil. I wanted to celebrate with a nice long nap.

With Sunday came the return of Thomas and the addition of Alaina. Alaina, with her long bleached blonde hair, Britney Spears cleavage and twenty-one year old flirty personality brought a whole new flavor to the registration table. Seeing as we had practically nothing to do, I didn’t mind listening to Alaina’s endless stories about her boyfriend Marco and all the other guys that she had a crush on. Thomas, Alaina and I could not have been more different but the three of us entertained each other for the next twelve hours. At one point, there were a few lawyers waiting for their nametags to be printed up and Thomas and Alaina attempted to entertain them with jokes. The jokes were fairly dumb but, in my sleep-deprived opinion, worthy of at least a chuckle. Obviously the lawyers disagreed. I chimed in, “Hey guys…I thought of a joke. How do you make a lawyer laugh?”

Alaina and Thomas in unison, “I don’t know…how?”

“Apparently you can’t.” As expected, the hardy guffaws of the temps were met with lawyer silence.

“Can you please watch this for me for a while?” a woman asked as she placed a life sized bronze ferret on the table. It was the much-coveted “Golden Ferret” award. This was the award given to the lawyer with the kookiest case of the year and was named after the woman who defended a doctor attacked by a patient’s pet ferret. It didn’t take long for the ferret to become our new pal. Not only was having a life sized ferret standing on its hind legs a conversation piece, the ferret was great at saying what we were too afraid to say. Whenever any of us wanted to say something obnoxious, we just picked up the ferret and mustering about our best ventriloquist skills, had the ferret say it for us. Since everyone at the conference secretly or not so secretly wanted their name to be added to the list of Golden Ferret awardees, they just laughed at whatever the ferret said. “What’s that, Ferret?” Alaina asked when a stuffy guy stood in silence after she spent fifteen minutes helping him.
Thomas immediately shrunk down behind the table, and uttered, in the voice of a ferret if a ferret could talk, “Ferrets like it when people say please and thank you!”

The guy looked around and then said, “Uh…thanks.”

When a particularly grumpy gentleman was having trouble figuring out what seminars he had signed up for, the ferret said, “Ferret thinks you should consider attending the seminar in conference room 10 called, “Show us your pearlies!” The fun thing about people with no sense of humor is that they have no idea when you’re making fun of them.

I stepped outside for lunch and entered an alternate universe. Market Street was packed with people cheering as a float went by, carrying a slew of men in leather chaps. Ah….such a refreshing change of pace from life behind the registration table. I spent my lunch hour walking down the street taking in the many glorious sites and sounds of San Francisco’s Gay Pride Parade. Rainbow flags, happy gay families, men wearing pink angel wings, and dykes on bikes were just a few of the highlights. I stopped to get a slice of pizza and overhead a guy on his cell phone, gay pride emanating from his every word, “Hey! It’s me…I’m at Pride. Wish you were here. I hope you’re loving the new Michael J. Fox book as much as I did! Love you! Bye!” I leaned against the outside of the pizza place and people watched as I ate my pizza. There was an old homeless guy sitting next to me. As a cable car full of dancing men wearing nothing but fluorescent speedos cruised by, he looked over at me, took a drag from his cigarette and said with a smile, “God bless America!” Amen to that.

The final three days at the health lawyers conference were spent “monitoring” seminars. This meant passing out evaluations, doing a head count of attendees, and collecting evaluations. In other words, my entire job could have been done by two boxes, one that said, “Please take an evaluation” and one that said, “Please return evaluations here.” But this way I got to sit in on fascinating seminars about tax law and medical code updates. During the breaks, the temps would all meet and get the latest information on Alaina’s drama with Diego, the conference attendee from Puerto Rico. For some reason, she was surprised that he wanted to have sex with her, after she spent the day with him, let him buy her a hundred dollar jacket, made out with him in the cab and then went back to his hotel room. After I questioned whether she was serving herself up some crack with a side of dumbass, she whined, “What happened to people just enjoying each other’s company?”

“When he’s a middle aged guy in the country for a weekend conference and you and your twenty-one year old firm boobs agreed to go back to his hotel room, then I think it was fairly clear that he expected to enjoy your company. If by company, you mean hooch.”

“You crack me up, Mary!” Alaina said while laughing hysterically.

“That’s good. But I’m not kidding.”

I gave up on trying to make sense of Alaina’s love life and switched to one of our other favorite conversations, which was developing the life stories of various attendees including “Mr. I’m too sexy for my bowtie”, “Dennis the Menace Boy” and “ Fun Aussie Woman.” That took us right to the end of the day and the end of our time at the Marriott. Alaina demanded that we exchange phone numbers and we hugged happily with the knowledge that we had next to nothing in common and would most likely never see each other again.

As the BART train sped me back to the East Bay, I reflected on the previous ten months of my life. Although I yearned for a full-time job, life as an office temp had given me a great introduction to California. The stereotype of the state being a wacky place to live may be correct. But, I had to admit, that’s what I like about it. And that’s why California is growing on me like pot grows in Upstairs Mark’s apartment. The co-workers, bosses, fellow BART riders…these are the people in my neighborhood. May I never again take for granted the lessons learned from Sesame Street.

Temporary Insanity, Part 2

The continued tales of my adventures as a temp in SF...


After a few days of catching up on The Makeover Story, Wedding Story, Baby Story and Dating Story on TLC, I began my next assignment. I was sent to work in an expensive consignment shop in Berkeley. I walked in the front door and there was no one in sight. I slowly crept to the back of the store and was startled by the crack of a woman’s ass staring at me from the floor of one of the fitting rooms. After recalling the “how to respond to the crack of a woman’s ass” section of the temp handbook, I decided it was best to talk to it. “Hi…I’m Mary.”

A woman, in her mid-twenties, with thin anorexia-induced hair blow-dried to perfection, stood up and wiped her hands on her tight Diesel jeans before shaking my hand. “Hi Mary! I’m Sarah! I was just cleaning the edges of the fitting rooms with a toothbrush. Can you believe that?!”

If I can believe that your boobs are real, I can believe anything. “Wow…that sucks,” I said.

Sarah informed me that my job would be to monitor the fitting rooms and put clothes back on the racks. Occasionally I would have the pleasure of attaching security tags to “new” items. It was essentially the same as my high school job at the Rockaway Mall Gap, except the customers at this place were wearing Birkenstocks instead of Balloon hightops. The days dragged on slowly only to be interrupted by the occasional Berkeley shopper demanding more from her used clothing. “Do you have this in a small?” one woman said as she held up a previously worn Dolce & Gabbana camisole priced at $85. It seemed that many people were incapable of understanding the fact that it was a used clothing store. I suddenly had a vision of standing in the middle of the Salvation Army screaming, “Excuse me…don’t you have this pale yellow “My dad went to Barbados and all he got me was this stinkin t-shirt” shirt in a medium?!” Aside from being master of the fitting rooms, I fielded a variety of important questions from customers, such as, “Who picked this crappy radio station?!”

“If enjoying a little Tone Loc is wrong than I don’t want to be right. Can I get you a fitting room?” I said with the perfect blend of “Have a great shopping experience” and “May that BCBG skirt show off your cellulite” in my voice. The highlight of the job was my role as fashion consultant to drag queens. I received this job by default since the store manager was a homophobe. “I don’t mind gay people, but why do they have to be SO gay?” she said after a guy left with a bag full of glittery outfits. Funny, I thought, I do mind stupid people so why do you have to be SO stupid? My drag queen consulting job had many rewards. After one successful fashion consultation meeting involving faux leather pants and a tight tank top with a bedazzled star, the guy thanked me by standing in front of the mirrors and showing me the dance routine he made up to Pink’s “I’m Comin Out.” He was gonna get that party started, all right.

“I have a great job for you. Phone reception for a tech company. The people are great! And it pays $14 an hour!” Really?! Fourteen whole dollars an hour?! That’s so super cool that I’ll almost be able to pay my rent and eat this month! Rock on!

I followed the directions to Rancho Santa Fe Tech, but was skeptical that it would lead me to a corporation. Rancho Santa Fe sounded more like a new salad dressing at Chili’s. I must admit, the temp people were right about two things. It was a tech company and the people really were great. The slight clincher was that I was given next to nothing to do. Unless sitting near the phone waiting for it to ring, while using the Internet to stalk every person in my past is considered something to do. It got to the point where I was taking stalking requests from friends. “Uh Mare…could you see what you can find on Dave Henderson…he goes to my gym and is hot.” I was on it. Bio with pictures sent within minutes.

For about a week I was kept busy scanning and resizing pictures of ATMs taken at various angles. Apparently this salad dressing company did something with ATMs. I found it less than fascinating, but it was my career for the week, so I pressed on. When that job was finished, I was fresh out of people to stalk. So I then moved on to the important business of updating myself on the lives of the current Real World cast, researching the best eyebrow shape for my features, reading the Craigslist personals and pretending it was solely for entertainment purposes, and keeping abreast, no pun intended, on Pam Anderson’s STD issues. After a couple months of this, a permanent ATM picture scanner/internet stalker was hired, and I was on my way.

Next stop…a home furnishing chain that was closing a few offices and needed help packing. During many of my approximately three million trips across the office, my arms loaded with various office and computer supplies, I’d walk by people who were emptying out their desks. Several of them gave me looks that clearly said, “Oh my Lord in heaven, by next Monday my life may be as pathetic as yours.” Yes, yes it will, I said silently with a smile, while tripping on phone chords that were now lining the hallways. That job was fairly introspective. Most of the time was spent sitting in an office, disconnecting anything and everything. I was able to enjoy some human interaction at lunchtime, when I’d sit in the sun with the professional movers, devouring a Big Mac and sipping down Coke, as if my work throwing obsolete business cards in a trash bag was as exhausting as carrying industrial furniture on your back. “Long day, huh?” I’d say, reflecting on that binder clip that fell behind the copy machine.

“Yeah, but it’s beautiful out today. Can’t complain.” One of the movers said, as he hoisted a shelf holding ten computers onto the truck.

“Yeah, I guess you’re right” I said, while shoving the last of my fries in my mouth. I’m sure they’d be moving that copy machine out of the way soon anyway.

The tables were suddenly turned when, after having many of my resumes rejected, I got to do the rejecting. For two weeks I sat in front of a computer at a law firm and input the information from rejected resumes into their new personnel software. At first I thought this may be satisfying. The rejectee becomes the rejector. Instead, I was flabbergasted at some of the fools who were joined with me in unemployment. Why in the world was I unable to land a job when the first line of a resume written by an attorney mentions, “what I learnt in school”? And a section on some guy’s resume titled, “Outside the Box”….it may as well be titled, “Even if you’re not interested in hiring me, please call me so we can have tantric sex.”

Fortunately, my frustrations were soothed by the sounds of the radio on the other side of my cubicle. The woman who sat back there had KOIT playing all day long. As in. “K-O-I-T…smoothin out the work day…” I don’t mind being somewhere between a rock and a soft place now and then, but it sometimes got to be a little much. That is until the magical afternoon when it became KOIT kareoke. A few notes played and I immediately realized that it was the beginning of “Part-time Lover” by Stevie Wonder. I was secretly happy about this discovery. Apparently so was the middle-aged woman on the other side of my cubicle because with her thick Chinese accent, she sang along loudly, knowing every word. Suddenly the singer in her could no longer be denied. From then on she was confidently accompanying artists like Barry Manilow, Wilson Philips and Kenny Rogers. She really came into her own when she sang along with Cher. She DOES believe in life after love, after love, after love.

Temporary Insanity

This is the first of a couple of posts recalling my adventures in temping in San Francisco.


"Okay! Great! I really truly look forward to working with you, Mary!" Do you have any questions for me?"

Yes, Bill. I do. Is it your hair gel leaking into your brain that is making you this unnaturally chipper or are you honestly wetting yourself with glee at the prospect of finding me temporary office jobs?

"No, Bill. I think all my questions for you have been answered" I said, trying my best to out fake smile him. The rest of my questions were being directed at the universe. Why oh why, sweet sweet world, did I just spend $40,000 on a Masters degree when the job requirements currently set before me could be met with what I learned from watching Sesame Street?

For the next few weeks I told myself that it was best that the reams of resumes I had sent out were being met with silence. After all, I needed time to settle into my new life in California. I had left my friends, family and job prospects in Boston to get a fresh start in the Bay Area. Always enjoying a challenge, I decided that during these tough economic times it would be a good idea to move to the place where the job market sucked the hardest. Time passed and I slowly began to feel more comfortable with my new West Coast surroundings. I befriended the dogs I saw on my regular runs around the Berkeley Marina, I looked forward to jamming out to the smooth sounds of Lionel Ritchie as I scanned the aisles of my local Safeway, and my hair was adjusting quite nicely to Oakland's lack of humidity. However, as fantastic as all this was, funds were decreasing and financial stress was increasing. I needed work.

Finally, I got a call. An environmental agency in San Francisco needed someone with Filemaker Pro expertise to help redo their database. Another temp and I were to spend the next three weeks gracing Forests Forever with our databasing savvy. The next morning I stepped on the BART train with a sense of employed purpose, got off on Market Street, purchased a hazelnut coffee that put a spring in my step, and had twenty minutes to spare. At five to nine, I approached the building, passing an overweight middle-aged hippie, long stringy brown hair tied back in a ponytail, standing near the entrance, smoking. My hello was returned with a head nod and a quiet, "Hey." I ascended the dirty carpeted stairs in search of Suite 220 and tried to hold my breath so as to escape the smell of inexplicable crustiness that permeated the hallway. Just as I wondered what to do about the fact that Suite 220 was locked, the ponytailed smoker appeared with a key in hand. "Hey…you Mary?" I suddenly felt overdressed and overshowered.

"Sure am. You must be Doug." He was just the guy I was told to look for. My boss. Doug unlocked the door, which revealed a small dark, musty, cavernous room filled with ancient computers, boxes and enough paper to make Julia Butterfly scurry up a redwood and never come down. Since it was my first day I didn't feel it was my place to suggest to the folks at the environmental agency that they may what to consider recycling.

As we waited for the other temp to arrive, I sat down at a table in the middle of the room, pushed aside some crumbs and flipped through the Chronicle. Doug popped in a CD and asked, "Ya like classic rock?"

"Sure, I like all types of music" I said. This place may actually be fun, I thought. Days full of data entry and listening to music can’t be too bad.

"Well, you're gonna love this" Doug said. Music began to play and I was suddenly having flashbacks to 1978 when my older brother and his friends would have their awkward pre-teen band practice in my parents' basement.

"Wow" I said, feigning interest. "What is this?"

"The Toadstool Banditz of Gilgamesh. My band. We just cut this CD recently. Connie, who works here too…she'll be in tomorrow, is in TBG too. Wait…let me cut to the third song…it really rocks."

Were my ears deceiving me or did he just say "it really rocks”? I instantly felt like I was on a promo for a “Freedom Rock” album. Finally, Heather, my co-temp, entered the room. It was the first of many occasions in which Heather confirmed that I was a fairly sane woman in an insane world. Heather had a smirk on her face that seemed to say, "Wow, it's dark and smelly in here and there's crappy music playing. What the hell am I getting myself into?" But she chose the more socially appropriate, "Hi, I'm Heather, the temp."

The first day's work involved going through a pile of papers containing 70,000 names and crossing out any duplicates. The hours passed, names were crossed out, and Heather and I had already gotten passed the initial pleasantries and agreed that the priority for the next day was that we came prepared with our own music. As I sat and stared at the canary yellow pages in front of me, becoming secretly excited whenever I spotted a name in triplicate, I had a vision of my obituary. "Mary, age 28, death by classic rock. After being forced to listen to CCR for eight hours straight, Mary fell to the ground murmuring, "I'm rollin…rollin…rollin down the river."

Connie showed up at work the next day in a frenzy that I soon learned to depend on. There was a seemingly endless explanation of the chaos at home that caused her absence the day before followed by continual non-sensical chatter throughout the day. That day Heather and I began the work that we would continue to do all day, every day, for the next four months. The entirety of our job involved entering a member number into the database and updating a few of the fields. 70,000 times.

There were a few things that livened up the long boring days at Forests Forever, more commonly known as FoFo by everyone who worked there. One was Upstairs Mark. He was in his mid-forties and recovering fairly well from a few thousand too many acid trips back in the day. Mark did work on the database and came down about once a day to obsess on his evil stepmother and the ways in which the world was turning to crap. Most people were tired of hearing from Mark, but Heather and I enjoyed hearing his quirky philosophies. Another FoFo highlight was the sing-alongs. Aside from the occasional forced run through of the TBG CD, Heather and I had gained total control of the music. We varied it up with everything from hip hop to showtunes. But at 3 o’clock, the time when we always hit the wall, we threw in the upbeat sing-along songs, Prince and Madonna being our favorites. Soon Joe, the cleaning guy, joined right in. Yet another pick-me-up to the repetitive FoFo workload was the daily lunchtime walk. This was a time for Heather and I to window shop for things that we couldn't afford and people watch in the world's best area for people watching. Some highlights from our daily jaunts were the woman with the foot tall white wig with various notes and little items pinned to the back; the woman sitting on the curb and smiling at passerbys while not wearing any pants, and the woman singing to herself, "Fifteen chickens on a dead man's chest….wah-oo! And a big bag of corn!" That catchy tune became a staff favorite.

Heather and I cherished the zillions of smoke breaks Connie and Doug took. This was a time when we could accomplish important tasks like creating the set list for the band we made up called, "Connie's Banter." They'd play hits like "Should I Shut Down the Database", "We Should Really Start Up That D&D Game Again", and that catchy hit, "Who’s Cell Phone Is This…Should I Call One of the Numbers and Find Out or Should I Just Leave It and See If Someone Picks It Up." It was also during smoke breaks that we’d lay on the dirty carpeted floor and do various stretching routines.

One day, we got back from lunch and were greeted by Jennifer. Jennifer was a phone canvasser who would now be working a few hours a week in admin. She was very friendly and I was delighted to see a new face. It was not long before I had reoccurring visions of putting a muzzle on that face. Jennifer's ramblings made Connie seem eloquent. When I told Jenn that my background was in social work, she gave me a play by play of her experience working at a group home for kids, that ended in her bawling uncontrollably. Jennifer's entire job in the admin department consisted of taking care of the paper that needed to be shredded. By "taking care of" I mean sticking the paper in the shredder. It was taking her days to get through a box of paper. She occasionally interrupted her own tirades on nothing, to complain that the shredder wasn't working properly. Finally, at one point when she was off on one of her flirt breaks, Heather and I decided it was time to investigate the alleged broken shredder. It turned out that the shredder was completely functional and that it was Jennifer who was not working properly.

After a couple months, the geniuses at FoFo seemed to realize that although we worked our databasing fingers to the bone all day, there was still a huge stack of papers in front of us. It was time to call in temp number three. Heather and I were excited at the prospects for our new best friend. We were hoping for a fun gay guy with whom we could share celebrity gossip and fashion tips. The next morning we made the usual coffee stop at Café.com. TBG had a gig coming up there. We knew this because along with being pummeled with countless flyers, Doug reminded us about it at least 47 times a day. The climb up the foul-smelling stairway was made easier by the excitement of meeting our new partner in temping. I opened the door to Suite 220 and there he sat. He had headphones on and was already hard at work at my computer. Unfortunately, my gaydar on this guy was showing up negative. I introduced myself and got a soft murmur in response, "Hey. Russell." Then he was right back to work, speedily typing in member numbers, as if database fixing was his job. Oh wait, it was our job.

Heather and I were given the exciting news that we would now be working in the office upstairs. This was something we had only dreamed of. Upstairs had windows, sunlight and lots of people about whom we had created stories. It was barely believable that we might actually get to talk to them. Best of all, upstairs was a Toadstool Banditz of Gilgamesh free zone. As we walked down the hallway towards the infamous upstairs office, the smell of patchouli and sweat got stronger with each step. Heather and I were placed at computers on opposite sides of the office. We would silently work on the database updates all morning while soaking in the hippie drama taking place around us. By lunchtime we had lots of information to catch each other up on. "Did you know that Thrushbird used to date Tara?" "No way!" "Yeah, and it turns out that Billy got kicked out of his apartment and he moved in with Ken!"

One day, I was hard at work at the computer in the corner of the room. Piles of books, huge plants and tons of useless office furniture camouflaged my existence. Dina, one of the canvassers, took a break from writing poetry to call a friend. "Dude Kermit…I don't know why they don't hire you in admin. Actually I do, they just like to have those pretty young temps around."

"Thanks!" I shouted from the corner. "I don't know what's more flattering…that you think I'm pretty or that I'm young." Silence from Dina. I smiled at Dina as I walked by, and approached Heather's desk, singing, "Pretty Young Temps, repeat after me, sing na na na…"

The canvassers would gather each day to have their "briefing" in which they would get updates on the areas they were covering that night and any late breaking forest related information. Sometimes there was an educational component like a group viewing of "The Lorax" by Dr. Suess. One day, Chad, who normally led the briefings, began, "First on today's agenda, why does it smell like poop in here?" The man was right. The place reeked of excrement. Perhaps it had something to do with the fact that the majority of the employees had been wearing the same loose fitting frocks for the last two weeks.

Heather and I ripped open our checks one Friday afternoon and found an extra slip of paper in there. An invitation to the temp agency Christmas party. I was ready to toss it out when the words “Food and Open Bar” called out to me. I was in no position to be turning down free food and drinks. Heather and I decided to go. A couple weeks later the magical evening finally arrived. Neither of us knew what to expect, but we sauntered on over right after work. The bar was filled with temps standing around awkwardly and overly excited temp agency employees duded up in their holiday best. I was sporting the typical FoFo uniform of overalls and sneakers. Just as Heather and I were assessing the crowd, Russell approached us. Except this wasn’t databasing Russell, it was “He likes the nightlife” Russell. Drink in one hand, bacon wrapped scallop in the other, Russell began chatting up a storm. A few minutes into the conversation and it was clear that Russell was a man of the perma-temp variety. The kind of temp that has no intention of finding full-time work. In fact, he was angry that this job was lasting so long, because the only reason he took the job was to ensure that his unemployment checks kept rolling in. Just as I was pondering whether I preferred silent Russell or this new Sir Chat-a-lot Russell, I felt a tugging on my sleeve. “Look who’s here” Heather said quietly. “Doug and Downstairs Mark.” Downstairs Mark was fairly new in the admin department. It was unclear what exactly Downstairs Mark did other than follow Doug around and frequently whine like a six grade girl who was unable to get tickets to an N’Sync concert. The whining ranged from complaining about the ex-wife to your average run-of-the-mill over-dramatization of incredibly insignificant issues. There was the ever popular request for food. “Do you think there’s any way in the world that it would be at all possible for me to have one of your Sun Chips?”

“Yes, Mark. It’s a friggin chip. What kind of evil hag do you take me for?”

“Oh…thanks so much. Really. You’re too nice to me. I owe you one.”

“Yes, you do. I expect one cheddar Sun Chip on my desk, stat.”

So although it was fairly embarrassing, it was no surprise that Mark followed Doug to the temp Christmas party. I stuffed my face with a variety of mini foods and downed a couple gin and tonics while watching Jocelyn, the owner of the temp agency dance around like a lunatic and Downstairs Mark become more embarrassingly drunk by the millisecond. After losing a few rounds of the raffle, I pulled myself away from the excruciatingly dull conversation I was having with a woman who was really loving her front desk reception job, and was on my way. The next day Downstairs Mark showed up at FoFo looking like hell, went running to the bathroom around 10am, puked and then went home. But not before saying, “I’m really really really sorry that I have to go home early…I’d stay if I could but I just don’t feel well at all…you probably hate me….”

Approximately three and a half months after I initially set foot in the dank stinky halls of Forests Forever, I reached the final canary yellow page of membership numbers. It was time to say goodbye to FoFo and GoGo.

When Death Becomes Me

I am a bad blogger and I make no promises to keep up with this regularly. But I’m in the mood to write so here I am. I recently signed up to volunteer at Hospice. Since the training began a couple weeks ago, I’ve being thinking a lot about death, my own in particular.

We were given an assignment to write about how we’d want to spend our last few days. Who would be there? Where would I be? What smells and sounds would surround me? Why have I never thought about this before? Kristen and I have spent hundreds of hours on road trips discussing hopes, dreams, fears and bodily functions, yet we’ve never discussed our death. Fret not, it’s now on the agenda for our next trip.

But until then, I’ve given it a lot of thought. It seems that in our culture we fear death almost as much as we fear the threat of evildoers doing evil. People grow up planning and discussing the details of their wedding day down to every unimportant detail, not knowing if in fact they’ll ever get married. Yet even though we’re all definitely gonna die, we don’t bother discussing how we’d like that little event to go.

So how do I want to spend my last few days? It’s hard to say because I have no idea who will be in my life at the time. I think I’d want to be a cabin in the mountains. Maybe right near a lake. Where I could see on the porch and smell fresh air and feel a cool breeze and sun on my face and at night go inside and sit in a comfy chair by the fire. Surrounded by my family and close friends. It’s interesting to think about people who I’d want to be there but are not necessarily great friends or people I see very often. There will also be a medical professional there to dope me on as many drugs as necessary to make sure I’m not in pain. I’ll have Aveda Confixor in my hair. Depending on what season it is, my finger and toenails will be painted accordingly. Bright pink in the summer, a nice brown in the winter. People will be playing music and singing. Telling stories of good times we’ve shared. I’m guessing I won’t have too much of an appetite, but I see a delicious cup of coffee and a canoli involved. I think I’d like to laugh myself to death. One really good doozy of a story and that’s it. Whoever can kill me with their funny story gets a prize. Done and done. Thank you world and good night!

Afterwards, stick me in a box and set fire to it. Let’s not waste resources on my dead body. My family and friends can build sand castles with the ashes if they want. Or make bean bags with it and have a nice little toss in the backyard. I don’t really care. Unless they do something annoying with the ashes that I can’t think of now- in that case I’ll haunt them forever. Hey….c’est la vie.

Proud in Pink

Pink totally gets me. She just joined the ranks of my exclusive “My favorite things to come out of Philly” club. This means she gets to rub elbows with Rita's water ice, my college diploma, and people who say 'crown' instead of 'crayon'. I’ve been listening to the song “Dear Mr. President” on repeat. I was introduced to this amazing song by Scott, my new best gay.

It all began when I decided to volunteer at the Opening Ceremonies of the Chicago Gay Games. I knew some people that participated in the Gay Games in Sydney and it sounded like an amazing event. Gays from the world over converging for athletic competition, pride and getting their flirt on in a way that rivals anything seen on “Queer As Folk.”

Volunteering for the Opening Ceremonies involved an initial two-hour orientation. It could’ve been 20 minutes if it were not for dumb people and their inane questions. Must we really all sit here in a hot room and detail the directions from that chick’s house to Soldier Field? Mapquest it, gal. Sometime during the barrage of ridiculous inquiries, I caught the eye of a super dreamy dude, and exchanged a “Who should we pummel with our orientation manual first?” eye roll and follow-up smirk. It was like a rainbow light at the end of a dark tunnel of stupidity.

We were given strict instructions on what to wear. Tan khakis, white sneakers, our lime-green volunteer t-shirt and a belt. In other words- amusement park chic. We were also reminded again and again that we couldn’t check bags, so we’d need to keep our possessions to a minimum. I showed up to the lawn next to Soldier Field right on time wearing my uniform (had to go to Target to get the necessary shorts) with my few possessions in my pocket. It was a hot, humid day- the kind of hot and humid that feels like you’re standing on the surface of the sun wearing a terry cloth robe. I wandered over to my Green Team group to which I was randomly assigned. I recognized a few faces from the orientation, including one of the annoying question-askers. It was 2pm and the Ceremonies didn’t start until 8. We had no food aside from water, granola bars, and whatever we brought which in my case was some baby carrots and a banana. I lamented the tragedy of my life. And then I turned and there was Mr. Dreamy from Orientation. “Hey, I remember you from orientation!” I yelled, and then immediately regretted my lame eagerness. “No way! You’re in my group!” he said with a sparkly smile. Thank the Gay Gods, this day just got way fun. I knew it right away- Scott was my new bestie.

We stood in the shade and listened to the Gay Cartoon Superhero detail the rules yet again. The GCS was amazing. I’ve never seen anything like it. At first I thought Pixar was getting way good with their special effects. But this shirtless fella was for real. As was his uber buff body, his George Hamilton tan, his dyed dark hair parted just so and his teeth, which were a walking ad for Crest Whitening strips. He went through the medical protocol and mentioned that he’s a doctor. What good GCS is not a doctor? Scott and I were unsuccessful at our attempts to stifle our giggles. The way the GCS held his megaphone in one hand, and balanced his little notebook on his lifted leg while flipping pages with his pre-licked finger…it was just too damn funny. GCS reiterated the no bag rule but did ease the minds of the middle-aged lesbians with the news “You can wear fanny packs.” As if that weren’t bad enough, it was followed up by Annoying Question Asker from orientation blurting out, “What’s a fanny pack?” Scott whispered, “Oh, that guy might be kind of funny.” AQA wasn’t kidding. I did my best to hold in my giggles, while I found a middle-aged fanny pack-wearing lesbian, so that the AQA could be enlightened to the world of sensible waist-wear. Each one, teach one. Maybe the AQA thought fanny-pack to be some fun gay practice in which he had not yet indulged. Sorry, guy. It’s just a place for those with no fashion sense to carry their Velcro wallet and wristbands.

After listening to the instructions a couple hundred more times, we were told to be back in 2 hours. Awesome. We’ve got two hours to kill on a lawn in 98-degree heat. Perhaps it was the force of the humidity, but a group of five of us converged immediately to bitch about the heat and the fact that we had to sit around for a hundred and twenty minutes with nothing to do. What began as an authentic bitch session, turned into a fun two-hour conversation in the shade with some really great people. We took turns getting water and granola bars for each other, and commenting on the absolute hotness of some of the passersby. Once the athletes starting showing up, I began to feel like I had a stomachache from o.d.ing on eye candy. Let’s hear it for Peru and their pecs! To Spain, I say, Ole!

As more and more athletes arrived, the humidity had less power. Everyone’s excitement started to build. I suddenly had the realization that I was part of something amazing. Over 12,000 gay, lesbian, transgender, and bi folks from all around the world taking a break from the usual barrage of homophobia and hate, to share in an event that was nothing but positive and good. It was overwhelmingly refreshing and inspiring.

My job for the day was to lead the athletes from Montana on to Soldier Field. All two of them. I have an arguably bizarre obsession with Montana after having lived in Missoula for a little while, so I was quite happy with my assignment. I stood by the Montana sign for a while wondering if anyone would show up, and hoping that the scary looking lesbian volleyball team from Missouri wouldn’t kick my ass. Finally, a butch looking guy with a beer in hand wandered over, yelling, “Montana!” It was Kevin the professional billiards player. We immediately started chatting and it wasn’t long before Kevin proudly shared pictures of his adorable husband and adopted son. I was in the midst of helping Kevin find hot Asian dudes to gawk at, when the quintessential Montana Brokeback fantasy wandered over. “You guys from Montana?” he said with a smile. “Are you sure you don’t like va jay-jays?” I thought as I assessed all 6 feet and 6 inches of him. I think what I actually said was something along the lines of, “Yup.” At first glance Jason the triathlete looked 100 percent Montana stud- the kind of guy building furniture by day and salmon fishing at night. But after talking with him for a few minutes I caught a glimmer in his eye that said, “I sometimes dance in front of my mirror to Britney Spears.” I loved my new dysfunctional Montana family.

“Who is Montana Two?!” Scott asked, when I wandered over to find out what he’d been up to for the last six minutes since we last checked in with each other. “Jason. He’s a triathlete. It’s freaking unreal.” I said, as I chomped on my 14th chewy granola bar of the day, and wiped sweat off my face with my t-shirt sleeve. Scott and I decided to visit James, one of our volunteer buddies, to share in the shade of the giant umbrella he was holding. James was assigned to the same state as the AQA, and was less than pleased. The AQA was scurrying around doing what he does best- asking pointless questions of people, and James stood, one hand on the umbrella, the other on his hip, with his head slowly shaking in disgust. “I’ve given up. That one can’t be stopped.”

After a few hours of mingling with the athletes and volunteers, drinking water, eating granola bars, wringing sweat out of my clothes, and standing in really long lines to use the porta-potty, it was finally time to line up and begin the very slow walk to Soldier Field. I held the Montana sign as my two wacky sidekicks took turns laughing and bickering with each other. Montana’s minimal representation made us stand out and get noticed. That and Jason Dreamy McGee. A short, cute guy wearing a New York Team t-shirt came over, looked at Jason and said with a flirty smile, “Six foot four and 226 pounds?” Jason responded very seriously, “Six foot six” and then broke out his inner queen, tilted his head, put a hand on his hip and said, “220!” “Damn! I was close!” the guy said. He walked away and then turned back, smiled, and said, “Mmm mmm.” Some of these dudes really need to give the straight guys a workshop on how to appreciate beauty without being overly grody.

During the orientation and info session with the GCS, we were repeatedly made aware that there would be some protestors when we walked into Soldier Field, and that we should not engage with them in any way. While I agreed that that was probably the best approach, I wasn’t sure how realistic it was. At the very least, I’d be liable to say something like, “I’m rubber, you’re glue, shut up you ignorant fucking bastard.” Fortunately, there weren’t many protestors. The few that were there stood on the opposite side of the street with a row of security guards lined up in front of them. Some of the protestors spoke in megaphones, and all of them could have used a public speaking class or two. Not only was the content of their tirades absolutely ridiculous, their delivery sucked. These folks were clearly not in high school forensics, but then again, I’m sure that their free time was spent pulling Playgirl magazines out of the dumpster of the 7-11. Just be out and proud, and stop with all this embarrassing self-hate. It’s so 1998.

Volunteers and athletes cheered loudly as they passed the protestors, so that the stupid hateful rants were drowned out by gay pride fun. Brilliant. Also brilliant was when two gorgeous men made out hardcore right in front of the banner that said, “Homosexuality is a sin.” Even the security guards were smiling.

The excitement built with each step towards Soldier Field. As we got close to the entrance, a group of volunteers pointed at us and shouted numbers, indicating what lane we should be walking in. The pace picked up to a slow jog, and suddenly the only thing separating my two Montana comrades and I from the field was a row of hanging sheets of plastic. We were told to wait for a hand signal from the official volunteer in front of us. The crowds were cheering loudly. Kevin, Jason and I all high-fived, got the signal from official dude, ran through the plastic and jogged onto the field. Holy crap. Football stadiums are huge. The place was packed with cheering lovers of gay athleticism. The phrase gay pride gets thrown around a lot, and I always figured I had it. But standing in the middle of a football field full of gay people from all over the world, and stands full of people screaming with happiness, made me feel pride in a way I never had before. I thought about the hard work all the athletes had to go through to get there. Not necessarily the physical training in their sport, but the work of coming out and being gay in a world that doesn’t make being gay easy. I thought about how so many people in that stadium had taken huge risks just to be themselves. I thought about the risks it takes to have difficult conversations coming out to non-receptive family members, or to live in a country where being gay is punishable by death, or for seemingly simple things like a guy holding his boyfriend’s hand as he walks down the street. I was so proud to be among such a group of strong and inspiring people. I was ready to break out into “Free To Be You and Me” when Jason said, “Look”, and pointed to where the athletes were entering the stadium. I looked up and saw the lone athlete from Wyoming running in, carrying a banner that said, “Matthew Shepard.” I looked at Jason and our eyes were both filled with tears. He put his arm around me, and I thought, “Ya sure you don’t like va jay-jays?”

After all the athletes entered the stadium, everyone on the field was handed an LCD light. I couldn’t really see what was going on at the stage, but suddenly the lights went down and we were told to turn on our lights. An enormous rainbow flag covered the field. It was, to use a technical term, wicked cool. After a while of waving our lights, we all cleared the field and entered the stands. Thankfully, I was able to quickly find Scott, because I missed him terribly. There was a solid hour there where we hadn’t checked in at all. It turns out that while I was wrapped up in wacky Montana antics, Scott was involved in a flirt-fest with a Minnesota volleyball player. We should’ve had walkie-talkies.

The ceremonies were fun. Some highlights- Jody Watley’s hair. George Takai being George Takai. Andy Bell singing “A Little Respect” and Margaret Cho. I was exhausted from a long day of being on my feet under the hot sun, but not too tired to dance it up when Heather Small performed “Proud.” Finally, around midnight the festivities ended, and Scott and I headed to the train. We wound up walking at least a mile in order to escape the packed train station near Soldier Field. Scott and I parted ways at the brown line station after saying our goodbyes and call you tomorrows.

I couldn’t wait to get home and go straight to bed. I stood at the platform with a bunch of other people, and watched three green line trains pass. No sign of a brown line train. A guy, who looked like he was about 45, was sitting on the ground near me, with a service dog by his side. “Were you at the opening ceremonies?” he asked. My lime green volunteer t-shirt probably gave it away. I had mixed feelings about talking to this guy. On the one hand, he was wearing an official photo Gay Games badge and had a lot of photography equipment, so I knew he was at least semi-legit. But, he looked like a bit of a wreck. Granted it was hot out, but he was wearing a multi-pocketed vest with no shirt underneath it. And I couldn’t tell if the look in his eye was that of someone who was standing around in the heat all day and needed rest, or was the look of a sociopath getting ready for his next kill. “Yeah. I take it you were there too?” I asked. And that began a long conversation with Sean the photographer. After about ten minutes, I looked around and saw people giving up on the train and wondered if the brown line had stopped running. I turned to see if anyone else was at the other end of the station, and right in front of me stood a very cracked out looking woman, her frizzy nest of hair shooting off to a point on the right side of her head. “Did you guys go to the gay games?” she said slowly. Seems to be a common question in these parts. “Yeah,” Sean and I both said in unison. “I wish I could’ve gone”, the woman said. I took a step away from her and said, without looking at her, “Yeah, it was a cool event.” She said, “I’m a lesbian.” I looked back at her, and there she stood, her pants unzipped, wearing no underwear, her hand buried in her girly bits. I immediately turned back around and decided that talking to Sean the potential sociopath was a better option. He suggested that we walk over to the red line, and I immediately agreed. Sean was definitely bizarre but seemed harmless. I heard all about his dangerous photography adventures in war-torn countries, including the one where he got beat up and left for dead, and the subsequent seizures that created the need for the service dog. We got to the red line platform, which was thankfully full of crack-free people whose pants were zipped. I looked down the track and said, “Thank God. A train is coming.” To which Sean said, in his monotone, “Would you be interested in getting coffee sometime?” “Actually, I’m seeing someone” I lied. “Well, I didn’t really mean it like that,” Sean lied back. I said, “Well, to be perfectly blunt, no thank you.” And then he didn’t speak another word to me. When I got to my stop, I looked at Sean and said, “Nice to meet you” and he looked away.

At the time I was annoyed at Sean the bizarre photographer and Ms. Hand-in-the-pants for ending my fun day on such a bizarre note. But as I sit here listening to Pink sing “Dear Mr. President” yet AGAIN, these lyrics in particular stick out…

What do you feel when you see all the homeless on the street
Who do you pray for at night before you go to sleep
What do you feel when you look in the mirror
Are you proud

On one hand, there is progress. The one athlete from Uganda went through hell to get to Chicago for the Gay Games, and was greeted by a standing ovation when he walked out on to the field by himself. When he was interviewed later, he said he felt freer in that moment than he ever had before, and knew his life would be changed forever. There is hope for positive change. But the cracked out woman in the train station, and Sean who clearly has intense problems after witnessing the hell of war, are two signs of many that we have a long way to go. I’m not necessarily much of the praying kind, but tonight I’ll say a little prayer for Ms. Hand-in-the-pants, Sean the photographer, the Ugandan athlete, Matthew Shepard’s family, and everyone who is struggling to just be themselves. I’ll throw in a little prayer of thanks for Pink, and for all the many people who make me hopeful and proud.