so very alone…

Until today, I’ve been feeling abnormally good about myself. For one thing, I’ve been getting out more and actually talking to people. And it looks like I have a girlfriend. Then there’s this blog, this award-winning blog, which has the odd effect of making me feel like I’m a character in a novel. It’s driving me to get out there and stop living inside my head. For the most part, that’s a good thing.

And then there are days like today.

My job is located in a small building that used to be a dentist office. My company takes up two rooms, and there are three or four other small companies in the building that all share the same attractive receptionist. I was walking down the hallway to get a bottle of water when I heard someone say, “Who dropped something?”

I turned around and looked at the floor. “Really? What?”

“It looks like someone dropped his smile!” the guy said. Both he and the other two people laughed.

Now, I would guess that in this situation, 99.99999% of the time I would ignore them and keep walking. Not this time.

“It looks like someone dropped his brain,” I said.

I know. I know. It wasn’t funny. In conversation, my natural instincts are all screwed up. And they knew it too. While I hoped to see scorn or anger in their faces, all I saw was pity. They thought I was pathetic.

The guy, who is about my same height and sixty pounds lighter, told me to buck up as he was walking past me. “Buck up, buddy boy.”

Did I hold my tongue? Of course not.

“You buck up.”

Later, on the way out, the pretty receptionist said, “Have a good evening.” Did I reply with witty banter? Of course not. I scowled at her and walked out.

My stomach hurts and I feel like I’m getting a sore throat.

40 Comments »

I spent most of the weekend trying to decide which job I should take: the safe one, or the interesting one? It was not fun churning it over and over, because it’s not like a puzzle.

When you do a Sudoku puzzle, for example, you enter into it with the knowledge that there’s a solution (well, once I did one that didn’t have a solution, but I have to say that I still enjoyed the seven hours I spent on proving there wasn’t one. It was still a puzzle, just a different one than it had started out to be.)

My point is, life is unfortunately not very much like a puzzle, with an identifiable and correct solution. No, a more appropriate analogy for life would be that you’re barefoot on a rocking boat, wearing a blindfold, and you have to find your way from one end to the other. Except the bottom of the boat is covered with fish hooks, and every time you take a couple steps, a sailor on the boat either punches you in the kidneys or spin-kicks you in the solar plexus.

Except, at least in this one instance, my job choice has worked out to be a puzzle. And I’m fucking good at puzzles.

Here’s how it unfolded.

By Sunday afternoon, I was sick of thinking about which job to take. I was also, to tell the truth, sick of thinking of B. and Wednesday. By having sex with her, have I fully committed myself to her? Have we taken an important toward marriage, at least in her mind? Because I know for sure that I do not want to marry her. Except, right as I typed that, I realized that’s not true. I know that I want to be married. I want to relax and not worry about being alone anymore. And maybe B. is as good as I deserve. For that matter, she’s probably much better than I deserve. I know I’ve described her quirks, both facial and behavioral, but the truth is she’s been kind to me and has offered herself to me. That’s not something I should take so lightly.

I’m getting off track. I wanted to talk about how I solved the job puzzle. You can probably tell I’m kind of scatter-brained right now. So, Sunday afternoon, I went to the challenge court for some racquetball. I had to wait for a few minutes, watching a man and woman play (the challenge court has a glass wall). The woman was clearly better, and so it wasn’t a big surprise that the man left the court, saying, “Good luck” to me as I went in.

Her name is Janet, and she kicked my ass, two straight games. She destroyed me in the first game: 15-7. I started figuring out her style by the second game and closed the gap. She eventually beat me 20-18 (we were playing with the must-win-by-2 rule, I don’t think everyone plays that way). There was nobody waiting for the court after our two games, so we just swatted the ball around for a while, and I told her that I was trying to pick between two jobs, and I had to decide by the next day.

I have to say, it felt good to be able to honestly brag that I had to choose between two jobs. I explained the basics of my decision, and then Janet asked me a very smart question: “Why decide tomorrow?”

Yeah, why decide tomorrow? Just go into the small company and accept the job, but also call the safe company and accept the job there, too. Ask for a start date of May 1. By the time I get to April 20 or so, I’ll know whether I want to stay at the small company, at which point I could call the safe company and tell them I’ve had a change of heart. Or, on the other hand, if by April 20 I’ve decided the small company is screwed up, I can quit and go to the safe company.

Pure genius.

So that’s what I did. I sent email to the safe company saying I accepted the offer, and would like to begin May 1. I haven’t heard back from them, but most companies like starting employees at the beginning of months, so I expect that will work for them.

And then I went to work at this small company. It turns out I’ll be reporting to the company president, which isn’t all that strange when you consider that there are fewer than twenty people working there. And I won’t be in IT. My title is “Director, Special Projects.”

Which means I do whatever the president (let’s call him Devin) wants done. Devin’s one of those idea-a-minute guys, who has only a vague idea of whether his ideas can be executed or how. Most of his ideas have to do with multilevel marketing, with an emphasis on finding new customers via spam and short-lived websites.

Here’s the thing, though: so far everything he’s asked me to “look into” is ridiculously simple. They’re all things that other people have done before, and in most cases there’s open source code already in place. In other words, I am going to be able to be this guy’s genius go-to guy, overdelivering for him by doing about ten hours of work per week.

And here’s the best part: he asked if I mind working from home. It was like I had died and gone to heaven.

I have a suspicion (much more than a suspicion, actually) that I’m an under-the-table employee. I deduced this by the way Devin offered me an additional 10% to my income if I would take care of my own benefits. I told him it would need to be more like 20% and we settled at 15%. Also, I have not (and don’t expect to) fill out a W2 form. So I don’t know if I’m technically even employed. Maybe I’m just a contractor, but I’m getting a certain amount every two weeks.

So here’s a question: is there any reason in the world why I shouldn’t also take the safe job? I can’t think of one. I have a few debts to erase, and I think this could be an interesting way to do it.

Like I said, puzzle solved.

44 Comments »

Most of the email I get at my soveryalone.com address belongs to one of the following categories.

1. Demands to know whether I am real or not. I do not answer these email messages, because I don’t have any idea how getting an email from me would be any more convincing than my blog posts.
2. Requests to do a blogroll link exchange. I do not answer these email messages, because I don’t have a blogroll. I don’t have anything against blogrolls. I just don’t have one and don’t feel like making one.

Last night, though, I got a different kind of email. A request for help. Here it is.

Hi! My name is XXXXXX and I’m employed by the University of XXXXXXX Library Training department. I am currently working on making an informational phamplet about blogs. As the winner of the “Best-Kept Secret Weblog”, would you mind sharing some of your secrets? Can you send me some blogging tips? Would you mind if I showcased your blog on my info sheet? I appreciate your time and help!

Thanks

XXXXXXXXX

Originally, I thought I would just delete her email, because it seems like she was just asking me to do her job for her. But then I started considering the questions. What are my blogging secrets? What tips would I share?

I don’t think I have a lot of secrets or tips, but I do have a few, and I’m happy to share them.

I’m still not going to answer her email, but if she really does read my blog and didn’t just do a drive-by because it happens to have won an award, she’ll see this post and should feel free to use it in her pamphlet.

My Tips

• Write fast. I write and then I post and then I’m done. I don’t edit what I wrote. I don’t even re-read what I wrote. If there are mistakes, so what. I’m not getting paid for this, so fuck quality control. Anyone who’s looking for beautiful grammar or pristine punctuation or a lucid train of thought shouldn’t be reading a blog. They should be reading a book.
• Get your own domain name. Say you’re really, really drunk at a bar and someone asks you what your blog’s name is. So you say “http://mycleverbutexcruciatinglylongblogname.wordpress.blogspot. livejournal.spaces.live.com.co.au.uk.tv.net.info/blog/.” What are the chances they’ll remember that? And what are the chances you’ll even say it right? On the other hand, what if you say, “solonely.com” (which was my first choice for a domain by the way, but it was taken). They can remember that. If you’re saying to yourself that you don’t know if you want to spend the money to get a domain name and hosting because you don’t know if you’re going to stick with it, then you shouldn’t be blogging anyway. You’re just going to write five posts. The first will be a “hello world” post. The second will be a “the weirdest thing happened to me” post, and was the reason you started writing your blog in the first place. The third post will be a questionaire type post where you ask your nonexistant readers about something, because you’re praying that someone will answer. The fourth post will be a “not much happening today” post, the fifth post will be a “sorry I haven’t written in a while” post. There will be no sixth post. Commit to it or don’t do it.
• Don’t write about something you aren’t willing to be confronted on. If you think you have a bulletproof point to make, don’t make it on your blog, because that will be the one post everyone in the world will jump on, and they’ll tear you to shreds. If you’re not willing to hear counterpoints, don’t make a point.
• Get a really awesome design, with a catchy, graphical banner. I think it’s the aesthetic of my blog that brings people back.
• Don’t expect to make any money, because you won’t.

My Secrets

• You can get your first few readers by commenting on other people’s blogs. After that, the only way you’ll get readers is by posting often. And if you ever do a post that says, essentially, “I’m bored,” you are required by law to give your readers their thirty seconds back.
• Blogroll exchanges, link exchanges, and traffic-generating gimmicks are stupid. You might bring over a few readers, but not many. And they won’t stick around.
• Whenever I don’t have something to say, I post a picture of a cat with a hilarious caption, badly spelled. I find my readers can’t get enough of those LOL cats.
• If nobody is commenting, I add comments myself to get the conversation started. Usually, I post with the handle “Asshat,” “Amy,” “Leland,” “Talita,” “Em,” or “Moshizzle.”

You’re welcome to use any of these tips and to refer to my blog in your pamphlet. You can even claim you wrote it yourself, if you want to.

47 Comments »

If I had not gone to jail, if I had not taken a holiday from myself (which I think might have been a natural result of having spent a night in jail), if I had not hidden from my girlfriend (?), this still would have been a landmark week.

Here’s why: I’ve received two job offers. One from each of the places where I interviewed. I expected to have to work a lot harder to find a job than this. Like I’ve said before, though, job interviews are one of the very few things I’m good at. I know what the person I’m talking with is after, they know what I’m after, and there’s a clearly defined set of rules about how the conversation will proceed.

You ask a question, I answer. If I need clarification to your question, I ask for clarification and you perceive it as intelligence, not impertinence or obstinacy. You will ask me questions that don’t have an easy answer, and I will answer by describing the pros and cons of however many sides there are, then say I would seek consensus. In the absence of consensus, I would make a call.

You may ask some puzzle questions. If you do this, I will clean your clock.

Two thirds of the way into the interview, you will ask me if I have any questions, and I will have some. All of them will be geared toward getting a deeper understanding of the technical aspects of your business. If I noticed a theme to your questions, I will ask questions related to that theme.

I will look you in the eyes almost constantly.

And then, after it’s over, I will go home and put my sweats back on, and I guarantee you I will not leave the house–or my bed, if I can help it–again for the rest of the day.

Anyways, like I said, I’m good at interviews.

The thing is, last Tuesday didn’t go like most of the interviews I do. Instead of doing 1-hour interviews with several people, I met with just one guy: the owner of the company.

He hardly asked me any questions at all. Just things like:

“Could you do our whole website if you needed to?” Yeah, no problem.

“Would it be a really ‘web two-oh’ site?” Everyone in the world means a different thing by “web 2.0,” I replied, but if you mean will it be highly interactive and visual, I can do the interactive part, but you’ll need someone else to make it look really modern.

“Can you program a shopping cart?” Of course.

“Are you offended by spam?” This was a weird question, and obviously a loaded one. Now, the truth is I’m not offended by spam, but of course I don’t like it. The fact that he asked it, though, had to mean that his company must send spam. So I told him that I thought the term “spam” itself was offensive and that companies have a right to market their products. And then I went on a mini-tirade about how this “so-called spam” is free speech and should be protected as such, and that programs that block spam are unAmerican.

The guy was looking at me like I was his long lost son.

He spent the next thirty minutes talking at great length about the things I had said in two minutes. I stopped paying attention, focusing instead on how to best look like I agreed with him.

And then, after thirty minutes of masturbatory ranting, the guy offered me a job. Right then. No HR visit, no written offer, no “We’ll be in touch.” He just offered me a job. Said the salary right out loud, which has never happened to me before — HR people always want to write it down and show it to you, kind of the way car salespeople show you the price they bring back from the manager.

I was totally astounded.

I asked if I could think it over. He said, “Sure, think it over. And then, if you want the job, come in on Monday. If you don’t, don’t come in on Monday and I’ll take that as a ‘no.’ But I need someone to get started, ASAP.” He pronounced “ASAP” weird: “uh-SAP.”

I thought about it Wednesday. Buzz liked the idea of working for a small company and just walking in and getting started. No red tape. Just get started. But the reality is, I’m almost sure that this “fast-growing company in an untapped market” is a spam clearninghouse or is selling fake Cialis or something.

But then, on Friday afternoon, I got a call from the company I interviewed with earlier. They gave me an offer, too, for less money. But they’re a bigger, safer company.

I said I’d give them a reply by this Monday. That sounded fine to them.

So I’m asking myself, over and over: which do I want more, to be in a safe job not much different than my last job, or in a small company that pays more and would be more intellectually challenging, but whose product is probably loathsome? (And yes, I probed into what the company sells, and he was evasive: “we have a diverse portfolio of products, with an innovative distribution model. It’s proprietary, but once you’re on board, I’ll go into details.”

I really don’t know what to do.

OK, finally: the third offer. This one doesn’t have to do with a job. Long story short, Bertha has offered to have sex with me this Wednesday, after we’ve had a “cool-down” period and we’re both certain this is what we want to do. She says her emotions toward me are “conflicted.”

I have accepted her offer.

41 Comments »

OK, so now I have two things to write about. First, the new job offer. It’s still in the works, so I want to hold off until I know what’s really going on. For now, I’ll just say that it’s not what you’d call a conventional job. Second, B. came over last night, and we had an interesting conversation that deserves its own entry. All I’ll say for now is that she seemed upset when I handed her the $500 I owed her.

Before I tell the elevator story, I also want to apologize for yesterday’s outburst. That was uncalled for. Even though I was trying to be funny in blasting Ernest, I was a little too harsh. He touched a nerve. It’s like he was looking past my veneer and peeking into my soul, seeing me for who I really am — or at least thinking he did — and I didn’t like that one bit. And speaking of commenters, Amy wrote, “Harlan, this post was so boring. You really let me down today.” I’m terribly sorry, Amy. Here at soveryalone.com, we have a full refund policy. Submit your expense report and you’ll be reimbursed in full for your troubles.

Now, on to the story. Since it looks like I’m going to be gainfully employed soon, I’ve been thinking about the dreaded First Day on the Job Syndrome. On that first day of being introduced to people, of feeling ignored, of feeling lost and confused and intimidated, my hands are going to tingle and I’ll hear my heart beat in my neck. And here’s the worst part. For me, First Day on the Job Syndrome (FDJS) lasts for several weeks. In fact, sometimes, it never goes away. Which brings us to the elevator story.

In the job I had before this last one, a group of co-workers invited me to go to lunch after I’d been working there a week or so. We all piled into an elevator on the sixth floor, and someone pressed the 1 button. Since the building was on a hill, we needed to get off on the second floor to get to the restaurant. Here’s what went through my head:

“I think we should have pressed the 2 button. The restaurant is on that side of the building. If we go down to 1, we’ll have to walk all the way around the building and up the stairs. I’m pretty sure I’m right. Should I press the 2 button? What happens if I press the 2 button and I’m wrong? We’ll have to watch the elevator doors open, wait, and endure either unbearable silence or unbearable mockery, and then the watch the elevator doors close. I think I’ll just play it safe and go along with the crowd. Last chance! Nope, down to the first floor.”

When the elevator doors opened, someone said, “Hey, we’re on the wrong floor. Everyone back in the elevator! We’re going back up!” That was five or six years ago, and I still remember it like it happened yesterday. I remember marvelling at the guy’s lightness of mind. Oh well. Let’s go back up. God, I envied him! I spent the entire lunch lamenting the fact that I didn’t press the 2 button. In all honesty, a part of me felt like pressing the 2 button would have been a heroic act. I know it’s ridiculous, and that just makes it worse.

If I were a better online poker player, I’d never have to deal with another first day on the job.

Isolation score: 7

28 Comments »

I got a job offer. Trust me, it’s interesting. I’ll write about it later. Right now, I’m going to respond to what a few people said in comments. First and foremost, we are not going crazy. We do not have a split personality…

All joking aside, I thought it would be a good idea to break away from myself by pretending to be another person for a short time. I get tired of me, since I’m around me all the time. The experiment worked a little bit, but at the end of the day it was just too exhausting. There’s only so much wiggle room for changing your personality. I yam what I yam. Still, when I’m in a tight spot, it may help to pretend to be Buzz. Who knows?

What I really want to talk about is what Ernest wrote in comments yesterday. Basically, Ernest said my shyness is a form of egoism, and I need to “check any self-absorption at the door.” Are you done, Dr. Freud? Apparently not, because then he advised me to do three different things: talk sports, talk music, and be magnanimous. Let’s break these down one at a time.

Talk sports

This is idiodic. How would I talk sports when I know nothing about sports? I hated jocks in school, and they hated me. I have several pairs of stretched-out underwear to prove it. Even if they showed racquetball on television, I still wouldn’t watch it. What’s the appeal? If you like sports, I don’t suppose there’s any way of changing your mind. Still, put yourself in my shoes. Let’s say you turn on the television and watch a sporting event that consists of grown men running at full speed and throwing themselves against a brick wall.

Announcer 1: “Well, Scotty, this has been some event so far. Payton Moaning leads by a mere 12 points over Crazy Legs McGillicuddy, but Payton looks like he’s wearing down. It’s going to be a nail-biter!”

Announcer 2: “I’m already biting my nails. Here comes Crazy Legs now. Look at him run! He’s at full speed and . . . oh my! He hit the wall hard! I think I see teeth on the ground. And he’s up! He waves to the crowd. I gotta tell you, win or lose, Crazy Legs came to play. He’s hitting that wall like there’s no tomorrow.”

Announcer 1: “There is no tomorrow as far as these athletes are concerned. You really hate to see either guy lose…”

It all seems so pointless. Oh, and one more thing. My brother loves sports. That’s all I need to say about that.

Talk music

This isn’t quite as idiotic as talking sports. The problem I have with music is that there’s nothing to talk about. It all comes down to whether you like something, or don’t. The only song by Bruce Springstein I like is “Hard to Hold.” But what is there to say about it?

“I like that song, do you?”

“No, I don’t. I don’t like the way it sounds.”

“Well, I like the way it sounds. It sounds very good to me.”

“I think we’ll just have to agree to disagree.”

Be magnanimous

OK, now this is a good idea. I’ll start now. You’re not a total idiot, Ernest. How’s that? Do you still feel “OK” about yourself?

Sheesh.

Isolation score: 9.5

55 Comments »

I decided to try an experiment yesterday. I pretended to be someone else. I even gave myself a new name — Buzz. Buzz is an outgoing, stand-up guy. Buzz is full of bravado. Buzz doesn’t care what he looks like because he doesn’t care what other people think. Buzz is Bizzarro Harlan.

The experiment started out fine. I went to a coffee shop in the middle of the afternoon and had a conversation with some married woman who was willing to talk. It was a remarkably boring conversation in which I found out that Madeleine Peyroux (who sounds like a throw-back to old-time boring singers) hails from Georgia, where apparently a lot of musicians come from. Hmm, Georgia, huh? You don’t say. One of the reasons for my intense shyness is that I’m not naturally fond of people. But Buzz is. Buzz likes to hear what people have to say about Madeleine Peyroux and Basra and shameful increases in postage prices. Buzz still isn’t much of a talker though. He just asks questions.

Then I decided to let Buzz call B. At first, Buzz went a little overboard. “Hey baby,” he said. “We need to talk.” There was silence on the other end of the phone, and then she said, “Baby?” Buzz doesn’t want B. to pick me up, so we arranged to meet tomorrow night at a little bistro where we’ve eaten before. We’re going to pay her back the money I borrowed. Because that’s the kind of guy we are.

Finally, in my last act as Buzz, I went to a different bar in the evening. This is a real sports bar, not the kind where the tvs play sports with music in the background. In this bar, you hear the baseball announcers over the audio system. As you might guess, I’ve never ordered anything in this bar — until last night. I sat down next to a guy who was into a baseball game. With his whole body.

“How are we doing?” I said.

 ”Who’s ‘we’?”

Just then an important play happened and people seemed upset.

“Oh, come on!” I shouted. “Dammit all to hell.”

I drank a couple of beers and continued to yell at the big-screen television whenever something happened. And then it was over for me. I got exhausted, as if I’d just finished running a marathon, only without a sense of accomplishment. When the next bad play happened for “our” team, I said, “Oh fuck this!” and threw a couple of bills on the bar like they do in movies and stormed out. On the way home, my mind raced. I need money. I need friends. I need pens. The good kind.

Isolation score: 9

36 Comments »

You know that sculpture they put in courtrooms of the lady in the tunic and the blindfold holding up the scales? In truth, I always thought that was pretty cool, because I bought into what my eighth grade civics teacher, Mr. J., told me that it meant: that justice was blind.

I guess the idea is that everyone, big or small, important or not, is subject to the same laws. Hell, even the President of the United States can get busted for playing fast and loose with the truth, right? Having spent a couple of hours in a courtroom, I’m prepared to render a verdict on this little civics lesson: Bull. Shit. And I’ll tell you why. It’s not because of anything that happened to me. Apart from being bored out of my skullpan while I sat around waiting for my case to finally get called, I got to watch the turning wheels of justice, the machinery of state-sponsored truth. And what’s sad is that it grinds people to dust. The people they kept bringing up to face the judge, one after another, were such sad cases. I mean, they just looked so beat down. If justice is so blind, why does she mainly pick on the pathetic?

But I don’t just mean generally speaking. I was really struck by one particular person. I think I heard them say that her name was Lidia. I wasn’t really paying attention at that point, as they went through the mind-numbing particulars of each case. The main thing that had caught my attention up to that point was a phrase they kept using: the state of X versus person Y. Really? The entire state, every man, woman, and child against that one person? That just seems so harsh. Because maybe his mother is in his corner or something, in which case they should say: the state of X versus person Y and his poor mother. Anyway, as I was pondering this, Lidia (if that was really her name) came up to bat. The judge read the charges, basically an assault case. It’s a little hard to tell through all the legalese, but it sounded like she maybe tried to beat up her boyfriend when she caught him with someone else, and had then violated a restraining order.

Here’s the heartbreaking part, though: apparently, because she’d been in trouble before, when she got arrested this last time, they took away her kids. So she started out by asking the judge to show her some mercy, and that she’d made a mistake, and that she needed to be reunited with her kids. The bastard old white guy of a judge, though, cut her off right away and told her that she needed to limit her response to her plea, because this was an arraignment, not an “evidentiary hearing.” What kind of heartless bastard just cuts off a woman pleading to get her own children back? So she said she was terribly sorry, but it was all a big mistake, and she knew that he could understand where she was coming from, because probably he had kids too. So the judge pounded his judge gavel and warned her she was heading for a contempt of court citation. She kept going on, about how she just wanted to be heard and to have this all cleared up before it got any further, so the judge said she was in contempt of court and had the bailiff drag her out, crying and swearing. Maybe by that point she was in contempt of the court. I know I was.

I can’t get it out of my head how beautiful she was, all defiant and yet so sad at the same time. I know I’m hardly in any condition to be of much help at this point, but I just wanted so badly to help her. So I think I need to somehow or other find out who she is and do whatever I can to help her out. How does one go about finding a complete stranger, when all you know is what may be her first name?

I think it’s probably a blessing in disguise that I bought that new digital answering machine, because it fills up pretty fast. All day the stupid thing blinks at me: 22, 22, 22. I guess I should just delete them, but in some weird way that seems disrespectful. I know, I know, it’s disrespectful not to answer in the first place, but I think it’s only fair to B. to give her some time to cool down before I respond. Especially after last time, when I blew up at her.

The public defender assigned to my case advised me to plead “no contest,” which is a way of saying “uncle” but without specifically admitting guilt. He said it was pretty much an open and shut case, and that he’d worked out a plea deal with the DAs office that would get me off with only two days’ jail time and a fine and community service, and that I could serve the time on weekends. So I signed the paper. It’s official. I’m now an ex-con, though it’s only a misdemeanor. He warned me though that if I screw up again, they could reinstate the full penalty, which is six months in jail. So I think it’s safe to say my shoplifting career is over.

Oh yeah, happy April Fool’s Day, by the way. I wish I could tell you that this whole shoplifting business was just a big joke, but unfortunately in this case, the fool is me.

30 Comments »