Sleepless and soggy
I haven't been able to sleep the past few days. Not ideal for a pregnant person, but I can't help it. I lie down at a normal hour, exhausted, but wake up at 1 am thinking about my former place of work. It's so frustrating. Here it is, 3:45 am. I'm exhausted but still can't sleep. I've been transferring files from my PC laptop (which I have to give back to the company) to my new little iBook G4. On the recommendation of a few friends, I've made the leap to Mac. Only problem is, I have a lifetime of M$ Office documents to move over. Ever since I read Getting Things Done I've been cleaning and purging and organizing, so hopefully I can get the stuff I need to transfer down to a reasonable size. I think it's about 11 GB right now, which I don't think is too bad, really. Though that could take quite a while to transfer with a 32MB thumb drive.
I'm trying to put together a portfolio of everything I did in the magazine world. I've made list after list of things I have to take care of before my last day, on 12/30, when I have to hand everything over to the company. At least they gave me that and didn't have Officer Bob escort me out Thursday. Trying to keep my chin up, but it's hard at this hour.
This morning the car was under water, and now it won't start. We hadn't cleaned the storm drain and the street flooded and the water was all the way up to the seats. My husband was able to drive it out of the water, and we bailed it out, but perhaps we should have left it running. Later that day I went to drive it and it wouldn't start. It has juice and gas, but won't go. I tried to jump it going down the hill and it briefly caught hold but then died. Now it's parked a few blocks from our house. Hope it starts tomorrow (today).
I guess I'll go practice some percussion now. I have been watching MTV these nights, seeing some interesting videos. I liked the Madonna one for whatever her new disco tune is--great street dancing in it. And the Eminem one where he goes to an AA meeting and confesses he's a bad dad because of his fame. There was a cool one by Beck, called Hell Yes, that had an awesome shot of robots dancing. I love robots. Funny, Wayne said, "Do you remember how the song goes?" I said, "Nope. Just that it was called Hell Yes." "That's my point. It doesn't even matter any more."
I'm supposed to see Wayne tomorrow to work more on the album(s) but if I don't sleep at all and the car won't start and my cold is worse, it may not happen.
posted by Alexa Weber Morales @ 12/19/2005
5 comments
5 Comments:
What can I say except that, 6000 miles away, your sadness finds echoes in other people's hearts...
Cheer up, there are brighter tomorrows out of the blue: do not let the gloomy spirit of this world alter your natural pizzazz!
Maybe start by curing that cold? We often underestimate how a physical affliction can undermine our morale.
Anyway... take care...
D.
Yeah, "hang in there" and all those cliches. The complete abandonment of social obligations between corporations and workers is just sickening. Work for us for a decade or more, exempt from overtime of course, and then, as soon as the numbers turn red in the spreadsheet, fuck you. Merry Christmas from corporate America.
I say: "Fuck them all, something in French!"
http://voip-blog.tmcnet.com/blog/rich-tehrani/voip/cmp-layoffs.html
You tell her, lads!
And, Alexa, see, there's a silver lining after all--you might have never made the switch to OS X, had it not been for the rump-ream from our pals at CMP. BOHICA!
Seriously...you put so much of yourself into that magazine that it's got to be nearly impossible to cut the ties emotionally. But you must. It might have been (and now certainly will be) your music career taking off, it might have been moving out of state, it might have been any of a thousand things. But sooner or later, it would have been over.
What you did for the readers--not to mention us writers--was a valuable service. But as important as it was, it's in the past.
When you get to the "anger" stage of your grieving, though, we should break out a bottle of something and really have a go! Living well is the best revenge. Living well and laughing on your way to the bank will smack the suckers quite nicely.
I have to admit, though, that the car really does seem like piling on. Sheesh, they say all first novels are autobiographical; if mine is, nobody will believe the things that happen to my characters...
As for the insomnia: I don't care if it's 3:45 and you just want to scream "THOSE BUTTWADS!" and hang up. Call and scream. Believe me, Janet will understand.
So when I call at 3:45 am, Janet is the one who is going to answer and listen to my rant?
Thanks, the magazine was my baby and I'll really miss it. I remember when I worked on my first magazine, which was in Spanish and Portuguese for Latin American radiologists, I thought, "How could I ever leave this? There's so much to accomplish." It's like buying a house, you never run out of projects. A magazine is simply endlessly entertaining to run. That's why I'm not particularly interested in full-time reporting work, which I've been offered. I've done that already, but it's not the same as the variety of creative tasks you do in terms of putting an entire issue together--not to mention things like podcasts, webcasts, posters, websites, email newsletters, etc. Management has forgotten that the trick is not just to create "content," it's to delight and surprise the readers with visual and verbal wit and explanation.
Have you seen the hilarious segment on the Daily Show about the death of "fact-based" journalism? That's another looming problem...
Oh, and you're right, OS X is awesome. I think I'm sold on the Mac thing (and so is my 5-year-old).
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