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10:00 am - FRI 1/25/02
borders and stuff like that
Yesterday, I received a notice from "The Sun", notifying me of Mark and Jane's gift subscription.

I've been thinking lately about writing again.

A couple months back, I guess it was, I was temporarily fired up by comments made to me--"You're a very good writer. Have you ever thought about trying to do something professionally?"-- and thought I was going to give writing a shot.

What stopped me? I don't know...I looked at the "This American Life" website, and read their requirements for material, and I guess I wasn't sure how to write with a specific point, or PURPOSE. I felt like I don't write about anything other than ME, and couldn't believe there'd be an AUDIENCE for that.

So what's got me thinking about it AGAIN?

MONEY.

I need extra income. I feel such money-related pressure that it's hard to think of much else. It feels like everything in my life has some unhappy connection to the fact that I have no MONEY.

Now, I know on one front that's just a psychological "issue" I need to get over. "Money" is an obstacle that I want to figure out BEFORE I do anything else, and I know that's not going to work. I have to act like there ARE no money issues, do what I need to do, and have faith that I will be able to work things out, and that the money will come from somewhere.

That "faith that the money will come from SOMEWHERE" is where writing comes in.

I was thinking about Borders the other day, particularly after the whole cafe business, and a difficult truth popped into my head--I am ALWAYS going to have a very hard time (At Borders in particular, but in the "working world" in general), because I don't want to be a "lackey", but I don't want to be a "boss" EITHER.

What bothered me about the cafe thing is 1)Psychologically, it hit me like, "Damn! I'm 40 years old, and now I'm doing the same shit I was ding when I was in my twenties", and 2)It blew a notion I had that was propping up my rickety self-esteem, which was that "I have something special to offer".

"Borders" doesn't give a DAMN what "I have to offer", or what I might want, or anything else.

I'm just a cog. I'm cannon-fodder.

And I don't like it.

But as I told Cary and Kay last night at dinner, when I hear the managers talking about the things they talk about, it's so BORING to me that I almost lose consciousness just being on the PERIPHERY of the conversation (And besides that, they STILL aren't very well-paid. Better than a "lackey", to be sure, but not THAT much more).

And I think the thing that has struck me again recently about this Borders where I work is that there are a LOT of unhappy, bitter, frustrated people there. The environment of the store either ATTRACTS them, or the environment CREATES them, I'm not sure, but SOMETHING is going on.

My theory is that unless you're a young person and this is your first job, or you are "transitioning" in some way, you have to have some kind of DYSFUNCTION to be working at Borders.

As Debbie D. once described the gang at Schuler Books early on, it's a real-life "Island of Misfit Toys".

Mark and Richard have both been at this Borders for years now--pre-Padric, as a matter of fact--and they piss and moan constantly about the store...but there they are.

Hector in the cafe is the same way. I don't know how long he's been there, but it's been awhile, and while I LIKE Hector (Except for that period where he mysteriously decided to stop talking to me for awhile), he's one of the more bitter people I think I've ever met. He's VERY angry about Borders and how he feels he's been treated by management.

Even management is not happy. I know John's been looking for another job--I live in fear that he'll fIND it--and both Lori (A manager) and Robert (A supervisor)have recently expressed frustration with what is basically, the soul-draining nature of the job.

Robert said something that I had said, in slightly different words, just days previously in Diaryland, to the effect of "If there's a God, and he went to the trouble of creating us, I can't believe THIS was his plan for us" (To spend out days muddling through a low-paying, unsatisfying job).

And Lori and I got into a very interesting conversation during my dinner break recently. I was talking about what I've been talking about a lot lately, which is how I have to get past my fear and the "obstacles" I perceive to be in my way and just DO things, and she was responding as if I was hitting on a lot of HER concerns as well, and she said something I haven't thought about that much, but which is very true--The job ITSELF can really get in the way of getting things done OUTSIDE the job.

And when she said this, she wasn't talking about scheduling issues; She was talking about how the job is physically tiring but not very stimulating mentally--and I'd add to that stressful because of the low pay, and emotionally draining, both from customer demands and unhappy coworkers and in general, a poorly run operation--and how easy it is under those circumstances to want to go home and not do ANYTHING. You don't feel like your time at work is very well spent, or that it's even "your time", so you tend to want ALL your time outside of work to be a "vacation".

Jane said that in an e-mail to me some time ago. It's an understandable tendency when life is unsatisfying--you want to grab what relief you can wherever you can--but then you end up with nothing going on in your life but work and not-work.

I don't want to become bitter because my life isn't working out. I don't want to become more unhappy and frustrated than I am now. I don't want to be at Borders five or ten years from now, complaining to every new person who comes in about how the place really sucks.

I already KNOW it really sucks.

I either have to find another job, or else make the rest of my life so full and rich that Borders really IS just what I do for some money, and that it isn't my whole, unhappy, unsatisfying life.

I have to ask the Universe for what I want. I have to throw things out there. If I do, SOMETHING will stick.

I have to find places to feel good in my life.

Well, this entry doesn't feel done, but I told myself that I was going to get out of the house by noon, and it's nearing 1:00 now.

One last quick, "yay for Jim" note--In a burst of "Happy Homemaker" energy, a short time ago I swept and mopped my floors, and vacuumed my carpet. I think this stuff is, while not the MOST important thing in my life, fairly important--In ways large and small, I need to start giving myself the message, every day, that I'm WORTH taking care of. I deserve to live in a clean, nice apartment. I deserve to have a job I enjoy, and can feel good about. I deserve a fulfilling life.

Anyway, I gots to run.

 

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