Zero

i did lunch with Papa Zero today. our waitress asked him if he'd ever worked for the government (don't we all?), because he was very well-spoken. yes, nobody says "bacon and cheese double" quite so eloquently as my father.

a sweet girl, but severely confused.

or sly. she got well over the standard fifteen percent.

it begs the question, though, on what planet does government work equate to a silver tongue?

I don't remember where I was going with this story. That's horrible, innit?

To sum it up, Fatso ended up finding me here, at Wonderland. It'd been over a year since we'd spoken and he just strolls in, easy as you please, like no time at all has passed, smiling that creepy, good-natured, crinkly-eyed smile. He says hi and I say hi and there's a moment of silence and then he says.

He says, "My friend, Marquese is coming to town. I think you'd like him."

I say, "Oh, would I?"

He says, "Yes, he's one of the coolest people I know. I'll bring him by tomorrow when his flight gets in."

I say, "Oh, um. Right."

And that's how Fatso set me up on my blind date. That's a lie, though, isn't it? Because it wasn't a date. It was something creepier and more obvious than a date. There was the added factor of Fatso, the enthusiastic chaperone. And we didn't go anywhere. They just came by the desk and stood around for a minute.

"Zero's probably one of the most beautiful girls I'll ever know in person," says Fatso. (I'm not getting up myself. He said it, the shameless bastard. He should see me before I my morning bath of shea butter and virgin babies' blood. (Not just virgins. And not just babies. Virgin babies.))

"Marquese here," says Fatso. "He has the most beautiful singing voice you'll ever hear. He's shy, but if you ask him nicely he'll probably sing for you." (I didn't ask.)

"Zero's really funny. She's the funniest person I know, probably."

"Marquese is from a real bad neighborhood. He's seen a lot of crazy stuff."

"Zero's a writer."

"Marquese is here to check out a basketball scholarship."

"Zero looks fertile. Doesn't she look fertile, Marquese? Small, too. Easily subdued."

Right, maybe I got a little carried away there. Needless to say (Yet I'm saying it, aren't I?), Marquese and I said less than ten words to one another and he never came back. It's just as well.

Somehow, in the midst of all that, Fatso ferreted a movie date out of me. I'm sure I did something to deserve that, too.



(The next update may even be funny.)

The writing style's getting a little different, isn't it? That's all right. (Unless you don't like it, in which case you can leave a comment and tell me so. No? Didn't think so.)

During the course of my employment at the video store, I spent time with Fatso precisely two times. He snuck me into a bar and proceeded to get me silly drunk on sugary non-alcoholic sodas. The other time he got his friend from the liquor store to lug over a case of Corona Extras, one of which I sipped precisely three times and pretended to love, while watching a video with feigned interest.

This bit of wisdom I picked up from the musical stylings of Brandy: it's all about appearing to be interested.

You know, I may have actually picked that up from her eyebrows, come to think of it. But whatever.

The point is (Yes, there is a point. What do you take me for?) that I was at the video store for something like a couple years and, aside from his near-daily visits which were, in about every aspect, curiously similar to loitering, there was no epic friendship dotted with neglected opportunities to consumate our love for one another. There was just a fellow, not a particularly interesting or good looking fellow, who hung around with something approaching regularity. And there was a girl who didn't find it particularly worth her time to ask the mediocre fellow to stop coming around. And that was Fatso at the video store.

Then I was let go from the video store. Or I quit. Both stories work, actually. I was sort of ushered out with a violent an energetic shooing motion, but not--say--thrown out on my ear. Let's say, as a favor to my employers, I stopped showing up. And as a favor to me, they let me say I quit. And as a favor to everyone, I don't get into details about the dissolution of our business arrangement. The important thing is that I still get free rentals we all remained friends.

More later.


Brandy, expert interest faker, is secretly incredibly bored.

I already said that while I worked at the video store, Fatso stopped by pretty regularly. He frequently asked me to social gatherings and I frequently told him I had other shit to do.

You may ask yourself why I always lied instead of telling Fatso that I wasn't interested in being his hangout pal or his girlfriend or his project in the Big Brothers Big Sisters project (or whatever equally creepy and deviant thing he wanted with me). It's because I have no spine. Or, well, I had no spine. At that point in my life, if children's musician and entertainer Raffi had really wanted to push the issue, I would have married him. On camera. Dressed in a pink elephant costume. Singing (God help us) an Alanis Morissette ditty.

I mean, if he really felt passionately about it. Whew. Dodged that bullet.

And I really don't think that's an abnormal way for any sixteen- or seventeen-year-old girl to feel. Because, I mean, hey. Raffi had it goin' on. We're nothing more than the sum of our body issues and emotional scars. At that age, I mean.

I don't cry myself to sleep at night.

What?

More later. I'm diggin' these installments. And in case you're not sufficiently sicked out, I leave you with this final thought (a la Jerry Springer):


I mean, seriously. You can't tell me that doesn't make you just a little warm.

I've been remiss and I apologize. Some truly newsworthy happenings have happened (go figure) in the past couple of months, all illustrating the ultimate stupidity of the human race with fresh and eye-opening profundity, but my boss had the unfortunate idea of placing something shiny just to the right of my computer and I've spent the past several weeks completely consumed by distraction.

I'll limit myself to a single account, otherwise we might be here for a couple days. While I'm fully stocked on my egotism (there was a dry spell, but all's well now), even I am not so delluded to think I could keep you here for months' worth of updates. I've also been listening to a lot of the Stone Roses (or as Chuck Klosterman would say, "the Stone fucking Roses, who were actually a better fucking band, all things considered," comparing them to Coldplay [Klosterman for the win! In your face, Lumberjack.]) so do forgive me if this reads as a little too deliberately British.

This single account stretches back years, however, to a time when Zero (that's me, in case you'd forgotten, you fickle bastards) was a wee lass of only sixteen, working at a local pizza shop, even lower on the ladder of success than I am currently. See, whereas here I stretch my body over puddles to protect the pant hems and fine leather shoes of the tippity tops, there I took a straw to the same metaphorical puddle, sucked up the sludge (probably comprised of dirt, pollution, and the odd particle of fecal matter) and swallowed it. Both of these things, I do with a smile.

I would like to say that this pizza shop was quaint. Or that it was a miserable hole in the wall. Or that it was bustling with activity, morning to night. But there was nothing, absolutely nothing extraordinary about this pizza shop, except that they were willing to hire a jobless, snot-faced, chubby-cheeked brat like myself when no one else would, and that endeared them to me, quite deeply, for the entire six months that I slaved for them (a hefty commitment, if I do say so, fur a chubby-cheeked brat). Also, my manager had the most magnificent mullet in the Midwest. And he called everybody "Bubs," which you will find not at all relevant to the story.

In the course of my working for the pizza shop, I was forced to interact with myriad characters, each suffering from religious fanaticism to varying degrees. One of these characters I shall call Fatso, because he was. And because you really don't hear anybody call anybody else "fatso" anymore, and that is undeniably a cryin' shame. (Dry your eyes, though. I'm here to pick up the obesity-hatin' slack.)

Fatso was one of the more religious of the kitchen staff. He was smug about it, too. Knowing I was a skeptic, he liked to thank God on my behalf, with this sparkly, dimply smile. Despite his physical and social failings, we ended up having quite a few conversations. Two or three of those conversations even occurred outside of work.

Then a position opened up at the video store down the street and I jumped on the opportunity and stopped showing up at the pizza shop. (Officially, I have no recollection of ever having worked at any pizza shop, nor am I familiar with the term "mullet.") A year rolled by before Fatso turned up at the video store, sweaty and mouth-breathing because he was getting around on his bicycle. He said he recognized my car and stopped by to say "hey."

So I said, "Hey."

And he said, "Hi."

And he kept coming back. Every day. Hinting, but never blatantly stating that he thought he we should date. (I should proofread this shit.)


This story will continue tomorrow. For now, the coffee's all worn off.

A woman with a husky Tara Reid voice called and said, "There's a leak by dietary. You know, over by the employee elevators."

I said, "Okay."

She said, "Water's coming down from the ceiling. There's a puddle."

I said, "I'll let security know."

An older man, maybe fifties, maybe sixties, called and said, "There's water by dietary, on the floor."

I said, "Okay."

He said, "You might want to let security know. It's coming through the ceiling by the dietary office. You know, by the elevator."

I said, "Okay, I will."

A woman called, maybe thirties, and she said, "You know, there's a leak by dietary."

I said, "Oh."

She said, "It's all over the floor, by the elevator."

I said, "I see. Would you like me to call security and have them take a look at it?"

She said, "Please," and she hung up.

Pickle came up to the desk. He said, "So there really is water there."

I said, "Really."

He said, "Yeah, and it's coming down from the ceilng. Right over there by the elevator. You know the ones?"

I said, "Yeah."

He said, "I gotta go call maintenance." He leaned against the desk.

I sat. He stood.

I said, "You going to call maintenance?"

Pickle said, "Yeah, but I don't have who's on call."

I said, "They don't have a weekly on-call. You just have to pick someone in plumbing and call."

He said, "Yeah, but I don't know who it is on-call."

I said, "There isn't one."

He said, "Yeah, I know. Every time something happens, we go through this."

I said, 'You just have to call someone. Anyone. Put their names in a hat and draw if you want."

"Every time, we go through this," Pickle said. "Every time."

I said, "Yeah, well." I know a thing or two about a thing or two about repitition.




This isn't humor, so don't bother unless you're a genie:

Chuck Palahniuk says every generation wants to be the last and Aldous Huxley says only the truly exceptional have the ability to think, and even then their self-interest will dominate their freethinking approximately 50% of the time. Richard Preston doesn't know what to think; he only knows that everything is kind of interesting and we're all going to die, but preferably not due to a deadly airborn virus.

Working backwards, that concludes my reading for the year. I am seriously behind. I'd like to be on a new book every time I'm on a new paycheck. That's what I'd like. If I had a genie, that's what I'd ask for. The will to do the impossible, to learn everything, to use just one percent more of my brain than you're using of yours, to say everything you wish you had said and put it just a little more cleverly than you ever could have.

That's what I want. Not riches, not cars, not the love of my life with a platinum ring with an emerald-cut diamond, paved with brilliants from Cartier. Just let me keep eating up your thoughts.




p.s. That's what it means, "I'll eat your head." It's not sexual. Some people need their minds out of the gutter. Sheesh.

The Head Head was in today, pacing the halls and disappearing for long periods of time, shaking things up and putting everybody on tenterhooks for the sick amusement of it all. At one point, I considered the possibility that I would have to grab one employee, a man with an alarming passion for blinking and hand washing, and help to dislodge his tongue from the Head Head’s ass, so deeply imbedded was he. He got free without my assistance, wonder of wonders. The Head Head, for his part, appeared to be quite relieved and, with a crooked smile, dashed out the door.

That is all.

A picnic table caught on fire at work yesterday and my mother bought me pizza. But not before rushing outside with two cups of water and extinguishing the tired and somewhat obvious act of God. Maple, the nurse who called me to harass me about the situation, said, "Oh my God, Zero's mom, it's so lucky you were here!" She trembled as she said it.

My mother feinted a lunge at Maple, pounded her chest, and said, "Pow, bitches!"

She threw up gangsta signs and then came to eat pizza with me. My mom is hardcore. Don't fuck with us.

I'm updating on the weekend. Clearly, this place has become an awful addiction. That, or I'm bored.

Take your pick.

Yesterday, I got a wild hair and decided that, in the course of two hours, I would kill every maintenance work order within sight, which happened to number 176,343,234+. I finished, but only just. Joan Crawford asks that I do twenty a day so this way I figure I'm set well into August of 2007, upon which date I'm sure I'll be gathering dust in the same spot behind the desk there. It's worth it, though, because the prestige more than makes up for it.

While I was busily punching numbers and translating Maintenese into a close approximation of English, the security system decided to take a shit. By this I mean that it decided to start wailing for no apparent reason. I contacted Pickle because that is procedure and, well, he's just really handy to have around in a crisis. He knew precisely what to do. Within a mere matter of moments, Pickle and Gimli of Night Maintenance had their elbows propped upon the front desk and were quite effectively staring the security panel into submission. An outsider might have construed this as lazy, obnoxious as all get out, or--dare I say--completely and utterly useless. But I am no outsider and I can tell you there was a definite element of fear in the tone of the alarm ... as it continued to sound. All night. Despite Pickle and Gimli's valiant efforts.

They were appreciated nonetheless.

To make matters less difficult for me, a translator called with a deaf client. This has never happened to me before, but I must say I'm looking forward to repeating the experience very soon. See, the translator is human and he speaks to you and types to the client. However, when I speak, it must be processed through a computer for the client to read. When the client would respond, the translator would speak the words. The computer must have disapproved of my dialect. For example, the translator said, "What is the phone number to dial the room? Go ahead." Naturally, I responded something along the lines of, "Five. Five. Five. Five. Five. Five. Five. Go ahead."

The translator said back, "Let me see if I have this correct: Monkey. Apple. Carburetor. Pat Robertson is a cat. Go ahead."

I said, a little slower, "No, five. Five. Five. Five. Five. Five. Five. Go ahead."

"Matthew, Mark, Luke, and Bananarama? Go ahead."

"No. Five. Five. Five. Five. Five. Five. Five. Go ahead."

"I'm gonna get get get you drunk, get you love drunk off my humps? Go ahead."

"NO!"

"There seems to be a malfunction with the computer." No shit? "We will try to fix it and try back. Good bye, Operator."

I'm sure the culprit of the malfunctioning computer was the security panel, which launched into a moving rendition of "Luck Be a Lady" about mid-exchange. I was walking back and forth, trying to supply the translator with quick, clear responses and keep the alarm quiet for the five minutes it would take to get them off the phone. See, you can't put a computerman on hold. And it's hard to be in two places at once, even if those two places are only a few feet apart. At one point, the height of my enjoyment of the evening, I was suspended from the ceiling with a swinging harness, going back and forth between computer and security panel with a team of roustabouts back in Joan Crawford's office, tugging and releasing the ropes as needed ... while Gimli read the newspaper. He couldn't be bothered to help because, apparently, he'd been sucked into a particularly powerful article detailing just how many compact discs little Suzy Zefferfeffer lost in the violent storms of last week, and which ones she'd miss most.

I wouldn't want to get anyone in trouble, particularly myself. Also, I don't like to mislead people. Now, I say "people" with a small, flickering flame of hope that someone somewhere will actually read this tripe and have a chuckle. Thus far, my dreams remain unrealized. No one reads this shit.

Certainly no one from this facility. Ahem.

Even so, I think it's a good idea to clarify that the Head is no longer slinking through the halls. That was only true for the first couple days of his ... succession, so to speak. He now walks with his usual dose of vigor. He's been ordered to get a lot of face time in with the plebs, I hear. Supposedly that's going to foster some sort of misguided sense of loyalty. Like, if they have to look him in the eye later, they're not going to screw him over while he's gone.

I guess I can hang with that. That same logic helps me remain strong in the face of some of the catchier ditties by quasi-talent Justin Timberlake.

I recall almost having a purpose for writing this, but I'll be a paranoid, ultraliberal, Grateful Dead listenin' democrat if I can remember what it was.

There's a major reorganization going on at work. At least, they're calling it a reorganization, "they" being all the educated people in positions of power who are paid to keep the plebs from getting unruly. I think it's a misleading description, though. No one's ever flinched and worried over their livelihood when I told them I was going to "reorganize" my sock drawer.

Joan Crawford and Baby Doll seem to be taking it all in stride. They get a kick out of being the center of the rumor mill. People drop by, looking for updates on all the shit going down, and they're quick to spill in a hushed voice, as administration is just down the hallway. There's talk of chopped up name badges in the trash and a widespread wave of confusion over the new Head, specifically what qualifications he's got to do his job. This implies the Former Head was qualified to do his job and that makes me laugh.

The new Head, though, wears very shiny shoes that click against the tiles as he's strolling down the hall. Similarly, his new assistant, formerly the Former Head's assistant, is known for her noisy walking. Together, they make quite the power team. Or ... power-walking team, at the very least. They've got very ambitious walking habits and that's important in an executive team ...

... if they're running a fucking Relay for Life.

In all seriousness, he could be 100% qualified for what he does. I have no idea because, aside from losing his facility's accreditation and wearing some phenomenally terrible sweaters, I don't know what the Head does. The new Head doesn't have any confidence in his position, though, which is understandable considering it's publicized as an "interim" position, which translates into the eyes of my fellow plebs as, "Ehhh, this guy'll do for now." How far off that perception is from reality, I have no idea, but that's the way it is now. So the Head sashays through the halls on the balls of his rowdy feet like it's a pond and he's afraid to cause a ripple.

After all, if/when the position is taken away from him and he's bumped back down to demi-patrician, he'll regret having behaved like cock of the walk for x number of days, weeks, or months. The people will revolt. The entire hospital will be after the blood from his jugular like Fluffy and Siegfried. And I do mean the entire hospital.

For the first time since I came to work at Wonderland, the entire facility is taking an interest in what's shakin' over in the administrative wing. That never happens. There's a set of double doors separating the office workers from the medical workers. The Medicine Line, so to speak. The Canucks upstairs and the Yanks downstairs, and we only cross it if we must.

Unless you're a new age, free lovin', liberal arts hippie freak like Lumberjack. Then you go up North at every opportunity because that's where the drugs are. (Hide the oxycotton when he makes his rounds. You can't trust a democrat. They want to let the gays have baby gays.)

So, uh, yeah. Reorganization. I'm sure I had something relevant to declare, but the OxyContin's kicking in. Thanks, Lumberjack.