Tuesday, February 21, 2006

Hot and Coldplay

There are two kinds of people in this world: People who love Coldplay, and people who wish Chris Martin would stick a sharp pencil in his ear and wiggle it around for a half an hour.

Actually, there’s a third group of people who have never heard of Coldplay, but chances are they don’t have a particularly good internet connection in their cave, and so they’re probably not reading this right now.

I happen to belong to Group #1, which is why Monday night found me perched on the edge of an awfully steep stadium balcony, watching a very tiny Chris Martin-shaped dot coax powerful sounds from a slightly larger, piano-shaped dot. Even in the face of Coldplay’s monstrous rise to fame, and consequential overexposure, I continue to like Martin. It helps if I ignore his current Napoleon Dynamite haircut and the fact that he’s married to (and has one and a half babies with) Gwyneth “I call him ANTony Hopkins” Paltrow.

When Chris Martin speaks, the lilting British accent you forgot he had surprises you, and you suddenly remember that this world famous English band has no business popping up in the middle of Nowhere, Nebraska. Still, he was gracious with the Omaha flattery (“We can’t believe we’ve never been here before! This is like Captain Corelli’s Mandolin, where the lovers finally get together at the end, but they should have been together all along. That’s how we feel about Omaha.”) And 16,000 Omahans flattered him, with a deafening roar every twelve seconds and enough t-shirt sales to finance the launch of four small countries. Several times, he cried, “Thanks for giving us your Monday!” which I misheard consistently as, “Thanks for giving us your money!”

The band engaged the audience with a contagious excitement and visual charm. During the song “Yellow,” several giant yellow balloons fell from the sky for the audience to play with, tossing them around like enormous beach balls. When the balloons popped, they were filled with yellow and gold glitter that sprinkled down on the uplifted faces of eager fans. Said glitter probably presented a choking hazard to a few sing-along fans that had their mouths open, mid-croon, as they turned their faces upward in delight, but it looked pretty, and I couldn’t hear them choke from my seat in the rafters, so I didn’t mind.

During the ballads, I was fascinated to notice that a twinkling, sparkling sea of illuminated cell phone and digital camera screens has replaced the traditional cigarette lighters of yesteryear. At first I was mortified, and a little saddened at the intrusion of the 21st century, until I realized it was really rather beautiful, and 65% less likely to cause lung cancer.

The music was amazing. This is music I have been listening to for years and years, since before “Yellow” caused radio deejays to predict the band a one-hit-wonder, and far before “X & Y” caused Chris Martin to predict himself the next Bono. It’s also music that holds intricate memory associations from very important moments in my life. When I first went away to college to deal with the terrifying and invigorating freedom of Life After Home, confronted with the crazy stresses of academic exhilaration, I used to hole up in the campus’ Print Shop very late at night to work on my art. The little workshop would be empty of people, but filled with the overpowering smells of ink and copper and alcohol and mineral spirits. I would be elbow-deep in oils, with my hair piled messily on top of my head, more colors on my apron than my prints. I would have five deadlines the next day, and three more the day after that, and I’d have unfinished papers back at my room and a test I wasn’t ready for the next week. But when I got into that shop, I would toss Coldplay’s “Parachutes” into the sad little CD player, and I would take a deep breath and just…create.

During those college years, anytime I needed to relax and forget about the batty roommates and the masochistic professors, Coldplay calmed me down. It was always there, utterly reliable, and five years later, in another school, in another state, as I drove to my college graduation and pondered the meaning of Life After School, I popped “Parachutes” into the car’s CD player to stave off hyperventilation and keep myself from aspirating my tassel.

All of this is to say that musically, Chris Martin and his boys had a very high standard to live up to in my mind last night. And to my sheer, giddy delight, they surpassed all expectations. The music was intensely beautiful, and the show was engaging. And even though I was high enough in the nosebleed section to wonder briefly about the ratio of oxygen to air particles, I couldn’t have been closer to the music if the stage were in my sinuses.

That was a good show.

Saturday, February 18, 2006

666!

If you’re new to my blog and haven’t been properly introduced to my 1999 VenJetta, then you might consider going back and catching up on our adventures before reading this post. But if you’re short on time, all you really need to know is that 1999, if you turn it upside down, is pretty much 666, with an exclamation point.

Let’s press on, shall we?

Things have been going well for me, in general. I have a new job, a reasonably priced cat, and a mild-mannered apartment. My days have been mostly enjoyable with a 40% chance of idyllic, and my mood has been generally merry. Lately, I’d even let my feelings toward the VenJetta teeter on tolerable, and I began to think she felt the same way.

Now, looking back, I suspect this delusion was probably my first mistake, because the VenJetta can smell complacency the way sharks can smell blood and children can smell quiet.

Friday morning dawned at roughly two degrees below zero, the coldest it’s been all winter. I wasn’t aware of it at the time, but the VenJetta awoke to the cold with the sort of mischievous determination that only comes with a rare opportunity to land a devastating blow to your greatest enemy. In the early morning chill, the car planned her day while I puttered about my apartment, getting ready for work, oblivious to what was in store.

The drive to work was uneventful. The car was quiet. It was thinking, plotting, smiling.

I have half-days every Friday (I know you hate me, stop sending emails), so when I left work at 12:30, I was in good spirits. As I drove to my salon for a hair appointment, I was even humming a little bit. My tune stopped abruptly in my throat when I realized I had no power steering or brakes.

A couple of things happen when you realize you’re encased in several thousand pounds of glass and metal, traveling forward at an alarming velocity, and all options you may have once had to change the trajectory or speed of your travel have suddenly been taken away. First, you regret having ever taken those options for granted. Second, you analyze the situation with a lengthy inner monologue.

In my case, my thoughts did not begin with, “Oh, no! What could possibly be wrong with my vehicle?” No, my thoughts were: “Well, that’s it. Things have been too good. She doesn’t like seeing me this happy, with my life coming together. The ornery bitch has decided it’s time to put me in my place, and remind me who wears the Turtle Wax in this relationship. I hope that Explorer in front of me turns, because I’m young, and I haven’t climbed Mt. Everest yet.”

Putting both hands and all my weight on the wheel, I wrestled the Nasty Beast of Passive Aggressive Vehicular Manslaughter to the side of the road, and eventually was able to coast into a parking lot. The dashboard warning lights were blinking in an exasperatingly cheerful rhythm. I put both feet on the brake pedal and pushed as hard as I could, barely stopping the car’s forward momentum before the engine’s whine dwindled into pathetic silence. As I sat there, I looked around and took stock of the situation. I was sitting in front of a bank, blocking their driveway, utterly immobile. The VenJetta was now incapable of starting, turning, or stopping, and so had become a very large paperweight with no heat and an unfortunate sense of humor. The cold started to seep in almost immediately, and I began to hate life.

Coincidentally, my mother happened to be in town, and a quick phone call to her assured my rescue before my fingers froze to the steering wheel and broke off. Another phone call to AAA (who should really be receiving Christmas cards from me by now, and perhaps a nice cheese log) decided the fate of the car, which was towed somewhere. Anywhere. I don't care where, but it would be a nice bonus if it employs a compactor. I wasn’t as angry or upset as you might imagine. I was resigned, and a little tired, because the car has destroyed my soul.

I’ve decided the VenJetta does not need a mechanical overhaul, or even a stern talking-to. It needs a priest. Preferably one whose resume includes several qualified exorcisms and a fluency in German. An exorcism, while dramatic and initially terrifying, might just free the vehicle from whatever demon calls itself Car-ma. The procedure will take place in a darkened garage, with several hooded clergymen holding bibles and tire irons. Holy water will be poured into the radiator, a crucifix and a clove of garlic will be hung from the rear-view mirror, and several “Got Jesus?” bumper stickers will be slapped onto the fender while I sit in the corner and cry, “There must be another way!” A sudden wind will howl through the garage, the VenJetta’s rear-view mirror will start spinning around, the muffler will spew pea soup, and coolant will bleed from the walls. The car alarm will go off, but it will sound disturbingly low-pitched. Several well-meaning priests will not make it, but in the end, the howling wind will subside, and the Check Engine light will finally—finally!—turn off.

Still, I don’t hold out much hope, because if there’s one thing Stephen King has taught me, it’s that the car always wins. Well, that and never trust a clown, but I already knew that.

Sunday, February 05, 2006

Welcome to Corporate America.

Well, I did it. I survived my first whole week of life in Corporate America.

It was not entirely without incident, but then, I’m incapable of doing anything in my life entirely without incident. At the very least, none of this week’s events had any lasting damage on my state of employment, so I expect I’ll go back for at least another week.

The week began mercifully free of any doorway-related trauma, and after a short visit with Human Resources, I found my way to my cubicle. After being momentarily frozen by the sight of my name engraved (engraved!) in a nameplate on my cube wall, I suddenly noticed an adorable little bamboo plant on my desk, with a welcome card signed by everyone in my department. It was artfully arranged alongside my brand new business cards and several random objects with the company logo on them. It was a very sweet welcome. I was touched, and instead of mentioning that I am to plants what Jack the Ripper was to London streetwalkers, I simply thanked my coworkers and wrote “WATER ME” on a Post-It note and stuck it to the plant.

My first three days were packed with meetings. The meetings consisted mostly of several very smart people talking about very smart things while I smiled and nodded and tried to pretend I had a degree in something other than art. I suddenly had an overwhelming feeling as if it was Take Your Daughter to Work Day and I had misplaced my mother. And somehow, everyone in the office expected me to do her job.

People in insurance companies have a special way of talking that requires only acronyms, and I am often left wondering which storage closet holds all the vowels. I was fairly certain that the bombardment of foreign terms was going in one ear and out the other, but something must have stuck, because I recognized several words by Thursday, and was even able to offer a somewhat positive-sounding “Mm-hmm” in one of the meetings.

In the few minutes between meetings, I tried to go over the several volumes of administrative information HR had given me. Nowhere in my employee handbook did I find information on how to record a voicemail message without sounding like a complete tool. (It did, however, offer an interesting section about Diversity Training, accompanied by an unintentionally hilarious graphic of several white people sitting at a conference table, all looking at the one black dude in the room. If I thought insurance people had a sense of humor, I would think that cartoon was satirical.)

On my second day, I met with the Vice President of the company. Alone. Now, I have heard people describe me as several things, many of them complimentary, but “executive” is not one of them. So when I went up the Stairs of Labor Class Division and entered the VP’s fancy corner office with his fancy leather sofa and his fancy coffee maker and talked about mergers and bottom lines and the transfer of millions and millions of dollars, I felt a little out of place. Somehow I managed to keep what I imagined was a calm, cool exterior, and I just prayed that the VP couldn’t pick up on my inner monologue, which involved a regular rotation of the words, “terrified,” “intimidating,” “Holy Hell, what am I doing here,” and “Mommy.”

The week wouldn’t be complete, however, without a little profound embarrassment on my part. It was only a matter of time before I made a complete and utter fool of myself, so I’m almost glad I got it out of the way on my SECOND DAY. While attempting to move from a sitting position into a standing position in the lunchroom on Tuesday, I seemed to have skipped several crucial steps in the standing process, and ended up twisting my ankle and falling on my ass. As is required in these situations, my boss and coworkers were right there to witness the episode in its entirety. Their sincere concern for my well-being was probably meant to be kind, but it really just made me feel like a graceless moron. As I picked myself up from the floor and took a mental inventory of all my limbs, I managed to make a joke about being really anxious to take advantage of my Short Term Disability plan.

I felt pretty good about my witty recovery from such an appalling incident (dude, I made an insurance joke!), right up until the next day, when I did it AGAIN. Luckily, this time there was only one witness to my clumsiness, and she had not been present at the previous day’s display. Also luckily, I did not actually fall on my posterior this time, and instead was able to catch myself on said witness’ cubicle wall. I have to wonder at the reaction of the person in the cubicle next door, who probably saw his fabric wall bulge ominously with my weight. I imagine he saw my handprint pressing forth from the wall, Frighteners-style, and decided he had been in the insurance business too damn long as he dug around in his briefcase for his flask.

I never thought I was a particularly clumsy person, but I’m really starting to wonder at my sudden incapability of operating my limbs. I wonder if, at this company, you have to accrue motor skills over time, like PTO. By the end of the year, I should be able to walk a tightrope blindfolded. But seriously? If I don’t stop falling over at work, they’re going to make me take a drug test.

Maybe I’ll pencil that in for next week.