So many pills/ so little time to do them
The inquiries about our mental health have been pouring in. We would like to take this time to express our gratitude to those who have taken the time to wonder if we are going to jump off a bridge. The answer is, no. We have many important things to do, like eat dinner at the Sitar tonight, and we think we may go to see a favorite band play in Amherst next week. That’s what. And god knows what other activities we indulge in on a daily basis, which may fall under some broad headline of things we might consider “life-affirming”. Also, we have not yet had time to kiss all of the girls we would like to kiss, and so there are endless amounts of activities the B-rist Board of Directors has to carry out on planet earth, thank you.
**************************************************************************************

Yesterday at work, the afternoon bustle. I am hiding out in my cubicle, as per usual, doing an almost embarrassing amount of nothing. What my job basically entails is a good amount of spacing out. The interior walls of my cubicle feature a blue-green impressionist-type pattern, and facilitated by the fumes I breathe all day, it’s all just really interesting, from an art historical perspective. When I catch myself getting a little out of hand with the aforementioned activity, I sally forth and check in on some of my fellow employees, who may be doing any number of insane tasks. I will not lie in that I feel a large chunk of compassion for these people. What will have been a very temporary peek into the dark corridors of the dispossessed will in fact be a lifetime for these people. And it’s something that registers a very strange amount of sadness within me. As a final blow to not only the aesthetic, I notice that the customer service people are wearing these badges which say, “Let them hear you smile,” accompanied by a smiley face. This is just another articulation of the office place misery, which totally undermines the ability of spontaneous happiness, the very existence of the badge which points that out. What is that even supposed to mean? I have to ask someone.



It is Friday afternoon, 2 hours and counting. And believe me, we are counting. You catch yourself looking at the clock repetitively, get up, make some copies. Shortly, the floodgates are going to be opened, and we will pour forth into the 2-day expanse of time which will constitute the weekend, where we will do god-knows-what before returning Monday morning. People should be ecstatic with ecstasy over this moment. But instead it’s characterized by the banal. All of my co-workers are standing around bemoaning what a horrible day it has been. We are well enough acquainted now that I can chide them about their bad attitudes. “Well I’m having a pretty awesome day,” I tell them cheerfully. This comment does not go over well with the masses, and I am told that there is enough work to be done that it can very swiftly be made a different way. I shut up quickly.

Back in my cubicle, I am pouring over the merits of Impressionist art when Saturday Night Live comes around to give me one of the free toothbrushes she is handing out to people. Attached is customer service card message, Let them hear you smile. I contemplate the card a moment before pasting it on my shirt, if only to annoy everyone I work with. Because for the first time, I appreciate the message as a non-ironic gesture. Which is pretty heroic, at least in this environment.