Oh, and it was the kind of slow day, where I transcribed some choice sayings and axioms from the New Oxford Dictionary of Quotations that one of the supervisors keeps laying around. Sure, Oxford and all, most of these selections, and most of the work itself, was witty dead white people. But this is the NEW Oxford, with 25% percent more multiculturalism!

Here's a few that made their way into my notebook.

"One of the greatest pains to human nature is the pain of a new idea."
- Walter Bagenot

"The world can only be grasped by action, not by contemplation... The hand is the cutting edge of the mind."
- Jacob Bronowski

"When imagination sleeps, words are emptied of meaning."
- Albert Camus

"I hurry to laugh at everything, for fear of having to weep at it."
- Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais

Probably my new-found emotional voyeurism is bringing me the truth of my soul, as it is so starkly and blindingly apparent. Make of it what you may, because I sure as hell don't know what to do with it. It must come out... it must be expressed.......

I feel pretty damn good right now. I don't mean now now.. but the overall now. In general, I'm doing okay.

Gentle readers (of which there is probably zero to three maximum,) you must be asking yourself, "Yourself! There a grave error here. Is this not the Kosher Pork Chronicles? Pray then, where is the usual existential angst? What about the emotionally-charged paradoxes? Or even, the psyche-ravaging identity crisis?" Yes, this is still the Kosher Pork Chronicles, home of overly Hebrew-identified homosexual hermit wrestling with his defeatist attitude. I'm still definitely an overly Hebrew-identified homosexual hermit wrestling with his defeatist attitude AND with over-active perchance for drama. Can't forget that.

But, still. I feel pretty good, right now. Today was a lengthy, but serene shift at work. The day in Seattle, after a few days of the trademark cloud-pissing rain, was perfectly clear and sunny. I spent an hour on the highest empty floor of my 47-story building, just looking out over Elliot Bay, the Hills, and Mount Rainier off in the distance, like Vesuvius must have looked to the people of Pompeii.. okay, that's it. I watch too many disaster movies. Anyway. It was gorgeous. I did a full floor patrol, and I walked along, jiggled doorknobs, and kept trying to come up with something wrong with me to ponder over. Somewhere on the 'teens, I realized, I had issues, but they weren't all that right now. I'm doing pretty swell where I am now. Man, they are so going to pull my Amalgamated Angsters and affiliated Broody People union card. And to top it off, now that I feel good, heck if I know what to make of it. Interesting times.

Oh, not the most dynamic relaunch of my blog, is it?

I'm readjusting to the whole notion that work actually involves.. unbelievable as it may seem.. working. This new post is a lot more physically demanding than any I've ever worked. Climbing down 43 flights of stairs, patrolling dozens of large floors, rushing to and fro to assist clients and visitors. And of course, rousting the homeless. The cornerstone of modern security. Not that I'm kvetching. Okay, kvetching that much. It's actually pretty decent. It's nice to be the good kind of tired as compared to the tiredness of searching for work all day and doing nothing else but watch your cash drain from the bank account. I hate to sound like a purveyor of that puerile Protestant work ethic. I'd like to fight for the right to be lazy, but I like eating too much. I might be doing shit work, but it drains the hyper energies out of me, and I'm being paid reasonably for it. I actually pulled the highest paying site in this company's broad downtown contract holdings. And I have the pleasure of knowing that I might have sold out, but that I can still hold my deep dreams of going into some of the law offices in the building and crap on their desks. As I've always said, it is the small things that matter.

So Israeli military lobs a missile at an old Islamic sheik in a wheelchair, makes a total martyr of him, and calls it a victory. I am still pulling for my solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Move all the Jews to Florida, and curse the Arabs with the worst doom. To actually try and hold the Holy Land. It sure worked well for the Assyrians.. the Babylonians... the Greeks... the Romans... the Crusaders.. the British...

Yes, let's hear it, folks... We welcome you back to the further expectoration of the Kosher Pork Chronicles! With a side of pickles and some nice cheese!

Yeah, yeah.. Last time I wrote the UnPresident had made his State of Disunion speech, and now it's two months later. Well, I have a good reason. Really, I do. I was being lazy and depressed. See, told you it was a rock solid and honest reason. The hunt for work got desperate. I got down to six dollars in my account, and if a paycheck, a chunk of my previous apartment's security deposit, and some birthday cash hadn't come my way, I'm not sure I'd still be here.. or least I'd be here, independently. Twice, I got so whacked out, I nearly called my folks to confess the error of my ways and get back on the gravy train. I couldn't even get a callback from an office where I sent a resume by email, to just find out if my resume got there. I did sort of find work, if I was willing to hold out two months, to work as a gas station cashier. The funniest thing in the end, was I was right. As much as I like being right, I rarely expect it. The idea was to move here to Seattle, find a job in security and badabingbadaboom. Now it was only supposed to take a couple months. I did find my security job, a good post downtown heavy on the legwork, I just found it in three and a half months. You'd think I would have learned by now.. Keep the faith in the ol' gut about what is going to be. But I rarely do learn. I don't think my housemates understood how bad off I was, or they did, and they didn't let me know. I was like a manic depressive, light-headed and upbeat because being moody and dark just wore out its welcome. I was no less sure that I had screwed up. Least it explains why The Middle Way interests me.. extremes can be hard on the chassis.
So here, I am. Employed. The job is slow, monotonous, and dull. Perfect. Just what I want in a security job. I smile for a few hours, wander a crapload of floors, and generally do a lot of nothing. And for this, I earn eleven an hour. Least now I understand why I was so wrapped up in the desperate need for employment. Okay, I like living under a roof. This is always good. But more than that, since I got the job, how I relate to the house, with its attached community, has changed. And it's from the simplest of anchors. Having a job gives me something real to attach myself to my environment. Before, it was still, the theoretical feel and transitory sense of an incomplete experiment, something left with factors untested due to real world stimuli. I wanted to believe this move was about something greater than the mundanity of independence, maybe that's still true, but I understand better now what I think I want from all this. Just to feel real, like I'm not just some ephemeral intellectual living detached from life. Now, don't worry, I won't start getting desires to wear flannel on my day off, and catch salmon with my bare hands. Work is still just work. It's chop wood, carry water. It's what I make of all of my life, that counts. And my writings will now be available in nicely-bound cloud-colored pages at the local Hallmark store.
Fuck it. Could be worse. I could be selling draperies in Houston.