Bruce’s Online Journal

“I write because I don’t know what I think, until I read what I say.” — Flannery O'Connor

Week of April 23, 2001

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April 24

The weather of late has been, not exactly bi-polar, but it’s clearly been experiencing some sort of adjustment disorder. Sunday was warm, sunny and pleasant. Monday was a beautiful July day. At 87°F (31°C) it was also the warmest day since the summer of 1999. Today dawned overcast, cold and windy. And it got more thickly overcast, colder and windier as the day wore on.

Still, it gave me a chance to explore new ways of describing windy days. Lately, I’d grown quite enamored of the phrase, “It’s a real skirt-lifter out there.”

I like a phrase that gives you an interesting and funny visual. This one didn’t always work out because many people thought of Marilyn Monroe. Marilyn though, was standing on an air vent, not caught in a gale. It’s a detail that straight people in particular failed to keep in mind.

The two visuals I favored were of a couple of proper old ladies, maybe Aunt Bee and Clara from the old Andy Griffith Show. They’d be holding their hats on with one white-gloved hand while failing to keep their dresses down with the other and shrieking things like, “Oh!” and “Mercy me!”

Actually, I preferred the image of drag queens. Not your big names, like RuPaul, Kenny Kerr or Frank Marino, but your ordinary, garden-variety drag queens, like you’d see in your own hometown on a Saturday night. The kind of drag queens who, while worrying about their wigs, would forget completely about their gowns until their hemlines were somewhere in the vicinity of their eyebrows. The kind of drag queens who would girlishly shriek “Mary!” then shout obscenities in a decidedly masculine voice and push their tits out of place as they tried to restore their hemline to its proper position.

You know. Normal drag queens.

Having been overused with so many windy days lately, “it’s a real skirt-lifter” has lost its impact on the people I run into.

Trying to remain upright while waiting for the bus this morning, I hit on, “Honey, it’ll blow you right off your pumps!”

It restored that split-second of confusion on the faces of those who heard it. That brief moment while their brains deciphered the unexpected turn of a phrase and before the laughter set in. And it has a huge benefit in the visuals department.

Since gay men and drag queens are the only people you’ll hear use the word “pumps” any more, it doesn’t conjure up images of Marilyn, Aunt Bee or Clara. Rather, it captures the spirit of the preferred method of describing a drunken drag queen, “She was so tipsy she fell right off her pumps.” In my mind’s eye I see a drag queen whisked right off her pumps, which remain standing upright in the very place from which she took flight.

And of course, she’d be shrieking because it’s required behavior.

Thank heavens I was wearing my Nike hikers this morning. Were I to be whisked away, at least I’d remain attached to my footwear.

April 29

It's been a trying week. I'm glad to have reached the end of it with a modicum of sanity intact. Walking home with a friend from the meeting Friday night, he said he'd had a similar week. "It was filled with FGOs," he said.

"FGOs?" I asked.

"Fucking Growth Opportunities," came the reply.

"Oh. FGOs. Don't cha just hate 'em?"

Monday, well I don't even remember Monday. I'm assuming that's a good thing though. Tuesday was… windy. Yeah! I remember that! Remind me to tell the story about the naked woman in body paint standing in a cage at the corner of Main and Exchange at the height of the lunch hour.

Wednesday, was a frustrating day. I'm beginning to doubt my abilities when it comes to PCs. It took me all freaking day, and most of the evening too, to configure a notebook PC for a friend. I'd have left it as a half-assed job except that after he dropped it off the night before, he took me to dinner.

Not just out to dinner anywhere, but out to dinner at Park 54, a small, intimate, yet very trendy, upscale place. I dined on filet mignon, wrapped with bacon, topped with horseradish and sitting on a bed of spinach surrounded by for-real mashed potatoes. It was worth the hassles. Or maybe the hassles were payment for the dinner. Either way, it was Wednesday.

Thursday. That was the day before yesterday, right? Let's see. I woke up with a headache, which I attributed to nervous tension. I went to group, followed by my shrink appointment, then delivered the notebook PC, got more PC gunk for a project on Friday, and did a web page for "Project A". Then I crashed out on the couch with a book after dining on boxed macaroni and cheese. Hey, ya can't live on filet mignon alone, you know.

Oh, yes! I remember Monday now. At my DSS recertification last week, given that I'm far enough along in rehab, but still unable to work (and waiting to hear from the voc-ed place) they made my benefits contingent upon doing one day a week of volunteer work. They call it the Work Experience Program (WEP).

I had to choose from a list of approved jobs at approved agencies and non-profits. Way in the back of the list was a place within walking distance, yet on the bus line in case of rain. It's a non-profit that gives light-industrial jobs to disabled people. I was familiar with the agency already, so that was my pick.

But wait! There's more!

As it turns out, between the WEP and the pending thing at the voc-ed place, I now qualify for a monthly bus pass from DSS. But since the WEP is within walking distance, and I'd told my worker that was the reason I chose it, and the voc-ed is still only pending, she's giving me the equivalent amount in cash benefits. And I still get the ten-ride passes at group. So now I have a $56 windfall and I just don't know what to do with it. More to the point, with seemingly hundreds of things clamoring for money, I don't know which of them should get some.

Anyway, at 8:30 on Monday morning I reported in to the agency. They had me fill out a job application, which I thought was weird, before meeting with the HR person. The list at DSS had described the job as "clerical, some computer work". Turns out, it was receptionist/secretary. Had I known that, I'd've worn something a little less butch.

It was almost painful sitting there while one of the office staff carefully explained in minute detail the proper way to answer a phone call, how to work the phone itself, how to take a phone message, how to start the PC, how to greet walk-ins and all that stuff. It took almost 90 minutes.

Finally I was left alone in the reception area. Bored. The HR person had hinted at some work she wanted me to do and after a short while she appeared, all smiling and chirpy. "How are you settling in?" she asked.

"Oh I'm just fine," I chirped back. "I'm already familiar with this make and model phone system, a computer is a computer, and people are people." I beamed. She beamed back. I wished for my sunglasses.

"I knew from your resume that it was well within your capabilities." Beam. "Okay then," she chirped. "I'm rewriting our employee manual. I need you to go out on the Internet, research the state and county smoking laws, find out what employers are required to do and put it all together for me. Okay?" A head cock.

"No problem." I cocked my head and beamed. "You need to know what you have to include in the employee manual with regard to smoking policy and the law."

"You've got it!" She was beginning to sound like a game show host. I was expecting her to start clapping at any moment. "Do you think you can have a rough draft for me by the end of the day?"

I looked at the clock. It had just edged past 10:30. "I think I can handle it."

When she left for lunch, the finished report was in her mail slot. Twelve pages. I'd done it the way I was taught and in what became my preferred method of receiving reports.

Page one was the executive summary. I pasted in the single paragraph from the county legislation that has to do with the workplace, summarized the state law (which is nothing compared to the county) and gave a thumbnail of each of the supporting pieces of documentation along with their URLs.

Page two was from a local multinational's online employee manual. Since that company is the agency's biggest customer, it made sense to start with them. Page three was from the University of Rochester's online manual, which included the disciplinary actions they'd take in instances of violation of the policy. Pages four through nine were the actual county law itself, and pages 10 through 12 were the county's "plain English" translation of the law.

Leafing through the report, she took a serious tone, "I'm impressed." No chirping, beaming or head cocking this time.

"Well you have a pretty good Internet connection here," I told her. I didn't tell her I'd already known exactly where to get the four pieces of supporting documentation.

Nodding thoughtfully as she put it back into her mail slot, she said, "I see that I'll have to have more for you to do next week."

One can only hope.

I answered less than a dozen calls all day. After lunch, the girl who had "trained" me hogged the PC all afternoon. Because she was between me and the phone, she took all the calls too. I spent the afternoon leafing through office supply catalogs trying not to cry out in pain as she struggled with the finer points of Netscape.

Finally she asked, "How come when I type in this www thing and click Search, it takes me to this list of stuff instead of the web page?"

"Uh, you just have to hit Enter after you type in the address. You use the Search button when you put in plain English words for subjects you want it to find."

"Oh." She tried it. "That's what I wanted!" (Only two hours after she'd started.) "They wuz right. You are some kind of computer expert."

Drat. That particular cat's out of the bag. Still, it was a Fucking Growth Opportunity. I learned patience and I learned why web browsers suddenly sprouted "Go" buttons.

As for Friday, that little project will continue into Monday, so I'm holding off reporting on that.

I've also taken up a new crusade. I hope you share it with you next week, as soon as I break away from these FGOs.

Up to Tue

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