human(e)

human(e)

I quit my job at the miserable corporate Gargantuan Campus after a month.  I hesitated to because everyone had told me it was one of the most powerful companies in the states. 

However, they bamboozled me with the pay, benefits and job description in the beginning and I ended up hauling 50 pound boxes of fruit, 20 at a time, on a giant pallet flat, running around the streets, sweating like a lunatic. I could hardly unload and unpack them before they told me to go get more. After about thirty trips a day, in 8 hours with NO HELP, this was extremely taxing and my fingernails would turn black from all of the skin of the fruit and every single person I handed the free fruit to would complain it wasn't good enough. THEY WOULD COMPLAIN. And if you do the math, that's about ten thousand complaints a day. I also was told to watch out for the fruit spiders that are large and get transported in the fruit when unpacking them. "It's fine," I thought, "I can handle this" as another person stared at me blankly, and I wondered why this job didn't come with benefits?? 

One of my coworkers who was the most genuine said the fruit stand was a joke, it was a job nobody wanted and they forced the other employees to volunteer for it, for a few weeks at a time. He had a visible, permanent leg injury and they made this poor kid, lug these boxes around like his body worked perfectly fine. He said they implemented the free fruit stand because the entire city was pissed the Gargantuan company was taking over every block and they wanted to do something to "smooth it over." The only problem with this, is that the only people who came to get "community fruit" were the Gargantuan employees!!!!!!! Not one person from the street, who needed food the most.  


The job was literally backbreaking and not the least bit of fun. I was micromanaged every four seconds on the speed, color, texture, size and shape and counting of each piece of fruit. Oh yes, and don't forget to smile and engage 10,000 people while doing this. If the fruit wasn't picture perfect, barely scuffed or bruised in any way, we had to compost it. Which was nearly a quarter of the inventory every day, since we were handling it so much! It was fruit hell. I was physically so exhausted every day, I would go to ballet class looking like total shit and then cry all the way home. 


I kept trying to remind myself I would make a lot of money after a while, and it was close to my ballet studios and it was a "normal person" job. But between the robotic employees and the overbearing micromanagement, and the badges, passwords, rules, the shadiness and something just feeling "off" I just didn't want any part of it, no matter the pay. I did stick it out for a month so I could have some writing material, which is always the best idea when a situation is bizarre or comical. Some things are just not worth the money and never will be. 


*****

I sat in a strange daze watching a man blow and a young kid drum with the passion of an old man.  There was a piano, and a trumpet, and I kept watching the sax player, as people shouted, whooping and clapping. Then I thought “this is it!” and I saw through the eyes of j. kerouac in Kansas City, on a late winter night. I wish I could have been with him and Dean, or they could have been there with me. In that moment. I felt it. Maybe they were, and the golden sax yelped up high, like an old new york mystery movie, and I knew what life was about for the rest of the night.

************

Girls are so bitchy in my boxing class. “You need to concentrate” said the overly smiley lady, hazel or whatever her name was. I looked at her like “are you talking to me like that?” “Concentrate!” she repeated with an aggressive tone. I was 5 secondssss from asking my teacher for a different partner. I was trying so hard to remember the combinations. 

*************************************

Morning run amongst the wild grapes and kiwi vines of my neighbors. Someone’s flowers in their yard smell like a field of cotton candy. A cat named Tom followed me and insisted I pet him.  

****

I just HAD to stand on my bathroom sink with wet feet. I had one moment of hesitancy as if I could feel what was about to happen. But instead I validated my instinct with "It's fine, I do ballet and have great balance." (For your reading pleasure, everytime in my life I have said something along those lines, the situation always backfires). 

I was already feeling a little sorry for myself anyway, not having the greatest night at work and trying to push it out of my mind. But I slipped off the counter in less then a fraction of a second, while innately and stupidly grabbing onto the vanity mirror while letting out a gasp in a tone of voice that I hardly recognized as coming from me. A gasp laced with "I'm not immortal" and also "I am alone at the time, at my home." 

I continued to fall, slipping hazardously sideways and ripping the toilet paper holder off as I came crashing down onto the top of the toilet lid. All the terrible injuries I could have, flashing before my eyes. The internal panic of what if I am unable to work? Unable to go running or dance again? 

I landed, alive and with no broken bones, as I saw a large layer of skin shaved freshly off my right bare leg. My leg turned deep bloodshot strawberry, from my ankle to my knee, the burst capillaries spreading wildly as I felt my eyes starting to mist childishly up. I wanted my mom. I wanted my boyfriend. I wasn't exempt from unfortunate circumstance or injury like I so haughtily would think every now and then. 

I said "holy shit" or something of the sort, that I was major injury free and how stupid of an idea that was. I tried to mount the toilet paper holder back on to no avail. The vanity mirror hung a little askew. "My guardian angel must be exhausted." I thought.

The shock starting to reside and my burn starting to sting. 

Another day of discovering myself in my thirties.

********

I survived ballet at one of the most prestigious schools in the US, at the beginning/intermediate level and I DIDNT DIE! No one smiled or talked or laughed, everyone was so so serious. My technique was total garbage but I gave it a hell of an effort. 

Also, the more serious or precise someone is before class (I.E. perfect leotard, matching tights, perfect shoes, hair, extra stretching, etc.) the worse they were are in class, and I don't know why this is. 

I was so nervous in class I could hardly remember part of every combination and the girls in front and back of me were MUCH better than me. 

The teacher was kind and went at a reasonable pace opposed to when I have been there before and I felt like our teacher thought we were racing horses. 

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A break from Hemingway

A break from Hemingway

Creature comforts

Creature comforts