give me little bits of more than I can take

An accidental christening of the new perky and lightly colored office carpet with the elixir of St. Drogo meant some dismay on the parts of the powers that be and now I have a brand spanking new desk mug with a lid so I don't spill again, because this new corporate floor covering is evidently really damn special and the greatest thing that happened in years. It's not some priceless rug from Tabriz, for heaven's sake, just some generically patterned thing with a corporatey buzzword name like "Synergy" or "Media-Fest" or "Follow That Dream" that evidently make some people who have nothing better to think about really happy.

 It's not the first time I've gotten treated like the baby of the workplace family and this in particular,  makes me feel like a little kid that's gotten used to drinking out of the glass, spilled some Hawaiian punch on the Persian rug and has now been demoted back to sippy-cup status. Evidently everyone else has one now too,which I guess is supposed to not single me out, but everyone also seems to know that I was the first to spill coffee on the brand new carpet. Because no one's ever spilled coffee on a carpet ever before in all of recorded history. Seriously.
Addendum:
as if this wasn't enough, I received an electronic transmission that was sent at midnight last night, as if this horse wasn't beaten enough to a bloody pulp already...  At this point, it's just hilarious. 

some days are better than others

Attempting to tune out the madding crowd and the condescenders, might try and sneak out early because the absurdity is a bit much on a lack of sleep and mutual snarkers. Whoever said the freaks only come out at night?

Don't ask me about why my hair isn't growing, don't say you've been "admiring me from afar" don't tell me I don't know what I'm doing.

all I wanted was a day off

Sometimes I try to do things
And it just doesn't work out the way I want it to
And I get real frustrated, and like I try hard to do it,
And I take my time, but it just doesn't work out the way I want it to
It's like I concentrate on it real hard
But it just doesn't work out
And everything I do and everything I try
It never turns out, it's like, I need time to figure these things out

 and it was stupid of me to forget about three-day-barbecue holiday weekends, because I want to get down to Akron for that Finster art exhibit and maybe hit up the wax museum of the local televangelist and some weird flea markets and that fabulous burrito place in Kent, but everyone and their mom wants the day off too, and despite clearing it with the usual parties, others still deservedly enveloped in a golden glow of newfound domestic bliss have inadvertently left me possibly stuck covering the office where the phone will probably not even ring instead of documenting the absurdity south of the borders of Clevelandia.

Maybe it'll all work out, but right now it's not, and, well, it gets old to be doing the right thing and always feel like I'm getting shortchanged and stiffed, hitting the glass ceiling, being told I should be thankful for the pittance thrown my way.

First world problems, rust world problems, whatever. It gets frustrating to feel so stuck. I shouldn't complain, especially since I've got the best fellow peons one could ask for and work that is consistently meaningful and interesting, but the dynamics above all that, the absurdity of middle management and the stupidity of my city and country, it really starts to get me down.

this is not for you

OfficeSpaced snark aside, it's not that I want to be down here on a lovely Saturday in May when there's a lot of swank stuff going on, homies occasionally getting a weekend off instead of stuck dealing with angry women and space cadets takes precedence and with the weather warm, the day is still young at 5:15 as it is. Whether or not this is used against me because I've outed myself as a sometimes sucker will be evidenced later on. And maybe it'll rain. Despite what the overlords would have one believe, this is not because I'm a good little worker or want to score any brownie points with them. It's all about peonage solidarity.

 But time spent there equals to less time later so inshallah I'll be roadtripping down to the Rubber City recently vacated by certain now-famous folk to see the works of the wonderful Howard Finster, who in a fair world would get more recognition than, say, Thomas Kinkade. His fans include Michael Stipe and David Byrne, but I stumbled across not by that trajectory but a random library search for outside art.

By all accounts, he seems to be a nice guy, and as far as what I've read, doesn't seem to be super crazy unless one counts spirituality as such.

So yeah, take that, The Man, or something.

that's why flags are such ugly things

Taking off yesterday to decompress and think and plant, reading Dorothy Day to get some perspective as to the living out of principles, because I have no use for platitudes, have seen too much to be an idealist, and want to know what the hell I should be doing or how I should be responding to the way that things are going here.


I can see through this expression
And you know I don't believe...

 We have a short historical memory as a country. The same things that are said about people in the Middle East are what was said about the Japanese sixty years ago, and it's often forgotten that FDR signed an executive order to intern thousands of citizens based solely on their race rather than anything else. To this day, there is next to no evidence that any of these people detained who lost almost everything were doing anything wrong or "unpatriotic."

But they hate us. You can't reason with people who blow themselves up for a cause. 

That is what was happening, right?   Kamikaze pilots were the suicide bombers of the 1940s. Kids were raised to die for an ideology if need be. People still justify the nuking of two cities, and no one remembers the devastation of the firebombing of Tokyo. Now things are more or less okay between our two countries, if only because history on both sides has been swept under the proverbial rug.

And we love to wear a badge, a uniform
And we love to fly a flag
But I won't
Let others live in hell
As we divide against each other
And we fight amongst ourselves

And I'm reading about police brutality, about scapegoating of anyone and everyone for the convenience of having a bogeyman, because in every movement, be it animal liberationists, Occupy, pro-lifers, whatever, there will always be unstable violent people that make everyone else look bad.  The faces might change, the movements have different names, but these principles are still the same.

Man's freedom stems from his free will, and he must respect the freedom of other men because they are made to the image and likeness of God and are temples of the Holy Spirit. To build up fear of other men is to build up hatred too. "Perfect love casts out fear." Such a witch hunt as has been set loose in the country today, serves to distract the mind from our own militarization and enslavement, our growing materialism, and to set us in the self righteous position of rooting out the evil in other men, paying no attention to the beam in our own eye. It is always so satisfactory to find a scapegoat on which to heap our sins. During the depression it was the international Jewish bankers. Now it is the communist.

And depending on what side you are, this scapegoat could be someone with an Arabic last name, the crusty punks on the public square, or the evangelical Christian with some weird views on fetuses and how the world came to be that you read about on the Internet and revile because you don't actually know any of these people in real life. 


The teacher is afraid to speak of interracial justice, of peace, of social justice these days, for fear he may be considered subversive. Loyalty oaths are beginning to be required at some state universities before a speaker can give an address to the students. This last month, Fritz Eichenberg, Quaker, who does magnificent illustrations for The Catholic Worker, refused to take the loyalty oath at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn where he teaches. I suppose that means he loses his job. One must accept voluntary poverty these days to keep his integrity.

I used to roll my eyes at this rhetoric when I was in college, but then I see this fly the flag and show your loyalty to the state business that's been resurrected and it starts to not seem so crazy after all. I stopped saying the pledge long ago, because I don't need to pledge allegiance to anyone's damn flag, because what it stands for goes against everything that I believe, cultural religious trappings be damned. One nation under God? The whole damn universe is, not just us, and not everyone believes in said higher power anyway. Liberty and justice for all? Ya think? And so I live here and obey the laws that don't go against my moral code and do my best to treat others the way I'd like to be treated, treat the land with respect. In theory this should make me a good citizen, but I'm sure that others would dispute this.


The occupied countries became the occupied countries because people were terrorized into saying yes, when they should have said no. Hitler and Stalin, Mussolini and Franco--this is the age of repression and McCarthy, in the guise of fighting Communism, is finding it in any honest criticism of the status quo?

Neither system proposed by the overlords or the economists or the protestors is working. Humans as a rule are broken, and therefore it's inevitable that our systems are too.

Angry words won't stop the fight
Two wrongs won't make it right
A new heart is what I need
Oh God, make it bleed
Is there nothing left?

got that feeling

The "Space Casino" is landing soon in Downtown Clevelandia, which gives me one more reason not to go near that place except for expeditions in snark with my erstwhile colleague. Having made his fortune off subprime loans, taking advantage of his employees, making himself into a Comic Sans superhero for the less astute Clevelandians, he's now found another way to part fools with their money.

Not everyone shares my view on this of course, and while out for a friend's birthday last night, I was a minority at the table with my views on downtown development, which probably has a whole lot to do with delving into a certain local muckraker's personal papers and seeing the huge huge tax breaks and sweetheart deals between the local powers that be and the big players that have inevitably screwed the general populace for years to come.

And yeah, shiny buildings are better than boarded up ones, but when all the downtown development I see is apartments and recreation that I can't afford, even as a 20-something with no extra mouths to feed  (and I'm one of the few that's employed!), and there's nowhere to walk to after sunset, no neighbors, and while the new and ugly construction goes up, there are still condos sitting empty, because who wants to live in a wasteland with a view of brutalist architecture? Like the Rock Hall and the sportsplexes before it, the casino and the medical mart are not going to save us, or give us sustainable jobs, and all we'll get is more douchebags downtown and more women getting exploited and more people being taken advantage of all the way around.

Then again, the general populace doesn't always seem to care. The Facebook page is an exercise in semiliterate head-hurting absurdity, of a subculture I know next to nothing about (my card game experience limited to go fish, war, and Egyptian Rat Screw), and I get the feeling that not everyone on here is being snarky. Read it and weep.

I cant wait to be your FIRST {{{ B I G }}} WINNER! ! ! :-) ♥ ♥ ♥
|7| |7| |7| = big $$$$ For ME!!!!! Oh yah i'm looking forward to play in my home-town!!!! Cleveland Rocks! Do you guys have go fish?Figure I'll gamble some, have a few cocktails then go down to the lake on beach and lay out .....I Love Cleveland...Is anyone going to answer the questions posted??? I'd like to know if you have Larrys Lobstermania and The Price is Right slot machines.
....lol I hope it makes Cleveland much more money then it has had for a long time. I love CLEVELAND! I would help the casino do stuff for free if I lived there. We are getting one in Columbus and I dont really care although I know I will probably go there a few time.
literally lose sleep every night waiting for this place to open.  I cant wait to spend all my pay checks here - this is going to be amazing Me too man. I had a dream that my wife left me becasue i loved this place more than her...Please don't send $5.00 free play....its not worth the drive from Memphis TN...send aleast $50.00 to $1OO.00 free play slot...Thanking you in advance.  I plan on spending my whole first six paychecks here. I should be VIP Bitch... I cant wait to have my gambling addiction exploited by having a Casino 10 minutes from my house. I raise you 2 months pay - first 11 checks will be blown at the fabulous Horseshoe casino !!!!! do you have a sophisticted Bingo hall?cant wait!!! BIG PAYOUTS BABY!! WOOHOO!! Can't wait to give you my money LOL! i will be excited to see the transformation, from a deptment store to a casino[ i once shoped at higbee's] thanks for the hard work and money to make it possiable. a long over due addition to cleveland ohionnnI am going to get so drunk there I will puke on the three-card table. Sadly I read they will not cash my unemployment check or use my food stamps as credit for chip.Okay Cleveland, forget the 54 World Series, forget the trade of Rocky Colavito, forget Red Right 88, forget the Drive, the Fumble, the Shot, its time to create your own Cleveland memories at the Horseshoe Cleveland opening on May 14th! We waited a long time for this but Cleveland is doing it right by being a part of the number one gaming company in the world "Caesars". No more long drives to MI, NY or PA. Use the $40 you saved on gas to try your luck! Oh and how sweet is this, "these tax dollars will help our children, grandchildren, nieces and nephews in our public schools! Welcome to all my family members, friends and new friends. Looking forward to seeing you real soon!

 

Strong women gripe and bite your heavy tongues

Glass ceilings be damned, I've never cared for women running the world any more than men. It's just a different kind of absurdity, less skirt-chasing and good old boys clubs, but rather the machinations of bitter and unhappy romance novel readers who consider everything their business and are unable to see that their casual cattiness and cruelty has sowed seeds of dislike and dissent, of alliances formed and sealed lips. I don't buy this solidarity of women thing for a minute, because I think deep down inside we don't really like each other, and with a system already in place that stacks the deck, we've become extremely good at throwing each other over the side to get ahead.



You say we can't be friends and wonder why we're not friendly towards our betters, but when there's no trust, no rapport, just an oozing of condescension and we don't need to be stabbed in the back because we see the damoclean knife unhidden, it should be no wonder that we all pull back.

I might be more loquacious than some, but there are some I know better than to trust, as we all do, having felt the sting of groundless accusations and intrusions. I know it's not because there's any caring, maintaining of an image perhaps, but more likely the result of small minds discussing people for lack of any true thoughts.The camaraderie of colleagues, the sundry domestic dramas meant to stay within the hearth's circle, the glaring double standards, why should you care so much? Because it's painfully evident that you don't.

oh where can the love be found?

It doesn't feel like the weekend is imminent when by a stroke of misguided and convenient comp time altruism, I'm back here tomorrow. Words mean little when the actions are so oblivious and petty, when one wonders why no one confides in you because of your habit of betraying confidence and backstabbing. Any morale we have comes from our fellow peons not the middle management.

The Powers That Be are who they are, and while I try to remember that they too are human and in need of the love of God as much as anyone, it's really hard to have empathy for souls so profoundly calculating and cold. 

In this house of suffering, I'm just as much in need of re-ignition as anyone.