Why do you hate me? The machine ate your fax.

Work seems to be bipolar. People's moods are like a massive wave at a Yankees/Sox game. Up out of their seats one minute and flopping back down the next. I am like Roger Clemens to a Sox fan. One day I am Roger Clemens of the Sox and the next day I am Roger Clemens of the Yankees. Once loved, then hated.

Iris and I share this sentiment. Sadly, today was Yankee day, in Fenway, for Iris. Not everyone was an ass to her, but one fan taunted her with no mercy. However, that fan is her imaginary boyfriend. Finally, I think she is going to dump him. I always told her that he was dead weight, especially with the wife and kids. But Iris likes her emotionally abusive imaginary boyfriend. Although, today seemed to push her over the edge. She might even sign up for self-defense classes tonight. How do you protect yourself from an emotional tyrant. It would be much easier for her to get over him if he simple hit her over the head with some faxes or even with her name plate after she drops a call. But no, he doesn't use brute force. That might be too kind for a feeling stomper such as him. If he was physical she could just kick the crap out of him and be done with it.

Iris likes him for his good fashion sense. She says that his clothes are cool because they are ultra conservative like everyone else, only he gives him a little edge. Mod boy as we refer to him does have a nice flare in the clothing department. It's ironic, how can someone who has a keen fashion sense have bad taste? He does have bad taste. He is nice to the assholes and an ass to the nice people. What the heck is wrong with him? I know the answer to that.

As for me, most people don't know that I exist unless they need a fax sent or some help filing things from the 80s. But today was different. I had conversations with co-workers. Honestly, I didn't know they knew how to talk. Actually, that's not true. I knew that they knew how to talk: down to me, at me, and about me. But, I didn't think they would hold a conversation with me. Granted, it wasn't a meaningful conversation, but Rome wasn't built in a day.

It's funny that the people who first appear to be mean and cold always end up being the nicest. I learned that lesson in high school when all of my best friends I hated when I first met them. The same is definitely true at work. Now, having been here for six months I've seen it happen. My two favorite co-workers scared the hell out of me when I first came. I thought they hated me, but they were always the ones doing nice things for me. I have two theories about this. First, initial impressions are always contrary to what the person actually is. I guess, in my opinion, first impressions are ironic in that the actual meaning is the exact opposite of the literal meaning. I try stay away from the literal meaning first impressions because they are the ones who stab you in the back. The literal people are the Et Tu Brutus of the world. I like the actual meaning. In fact I try to avoid people who are seemingly ultra nice. This brings me to my second theory, more precisely, to Newton's theory. Newton's third axiom: Every action has an equal and opposite reaction. Newton applies this to the physical world, I apply it to emotions. I avoid nice people because I don't want to be around when they blow. Plus, people who say nice things are thinking bad thoughts. Newton's 3rd Axiom; it's genius. To me these theories are laws, despite the fact that theories can never become laws. Universal truths can be deciphered with Kant's categorical imperative, but theories those become universal truths to the individual. I don't know. Maybe I should discuss this with my co-workers. I shall stand on my desk and yell, "Friends, Romans, Co-workers, lend me your ears." On second thought, I don't want them to get the wrong impression of me.

Hello, is anyone out there.

I realize that I am just doing this for my own amusement. No one will ever read these. These entries are like a diary, not to be read. But I don't believe a diary isn't suppose to be read. Isn't that the purpose of writing. Why write something you don't want read? Why say something you don't want heard? Why be someone you don't want to be? To be or not to be? That's an easy question.

To sleep, perchance to dream. At this time in the morning that is inevitable. I dream a little dream. I will myself out of my situation. I'm tired of it all. I no longer want to be the person who sleeps when I am awake and is only awake when I sleep, perchance to dream. This reality I must face. This destiny I must fulfill.

Destiny: is it a blessing or a curse? To know that there is hope or to realize the impending doom. I don't know what my destiny is, the only thing I do know is that this is not it. Destiny is some what of an exponential equation, you spend a life time fufilling it without ever achieving it. If you could actually achieve your destiny, than destiny would merely be death. Striving is life. Accomplishment is death.

Is anyone out there? I'm merely a tree falling in the forest. Who knew cyberspace had a forest? I wish they would stop cutting the trees down so I could breathe. I can't breathe in space. I need space to breathe. I can see my breath, yet I cannot feel the life within me.

Why does the morning make you so philosophical? Is it because we recently came out of our dream state. We realize what our inner most thoughts are. I don't know. I should start writing these things later in the day. I'm too depressing in the morning. Even though no one reads these, it doesn't mean they have to suck. If a tree falls in the forest, and no one is there to hear it, it doesn't mean it has to hit the ground with a big thud. Instead of writing anymore, I will simply stand back and yell, "Timber!"

The other me

In this place where I work, there are two of me. Not metaphorically, but actually. Correction, the other me is a part-time me. Iris, as we will unsuccessfully disguise her name, is the part-time receptionist. She has the cushy hours of 9-2.

However, she isn't really me. She is much cooler than I am. She wears cooler clothes. She sounds cooler when she talks to people. Sometimes, I feel as though I am back in high school. I try to pretend I am cool in front of someone who is cool. You want to impress the popular girl with your wit so that she will enjoy talking to you. If she talks to you than everyone else will see her talking to you. The old notion that if she thinks you're cool than everyone will think you're cool.

But, I do have one problem with Iris. Everytime I see her on the switchboard she always seems to be having so much fun. She is always laughing and smiling. There is nothing more infuriating than seeing someone having fun doing a job that makes you miserable. I know she hates the job too. But sometimes I wonder. No one can fake having that good a time.

Iris is the master of disguise. She is a ball of turmoil inside but a vertitable joy to the outside world. She seems to be the ultimate actor. Pretending has become second nature to her. Everyday she comes in but she's never here, only her alternate personality. She doesn't want that much out of life but she feels as though she asks for the world. Things don't come easy to her they merely seem like they do. The world doesn't have enough to offer her even though she has got so much to give. A little girl lost in the big cold world.

It's funny. No one thinks that they are cool, even the cool kids. The faux-cool kids think they are cool, but they are just playing a part, and not an entertaining one at that. Someone who truly possesses the ability to be cool knows the same highs and lows as the rest of us, they understand that life isn't perfect. They are just better at handling it.

Iris isn't any different than myself. We both bloom in spring. We both die in the winter. We are different flowers that grow from the same sun. Apparently, she is better at photosynthesis than I am. But, maybe that's why her grass is greener on the other side.

Will I regret this in the morning?

Lately, I've been consumed by notions of regret. Little moments that slipped away. Merely incidents, yet they ravage my heart. Thousand of inconsequential moments that weave together to form the fabric of regret. I've always believed that once I got to a certain point in my life that regret would be null and void because every instance in my life would have led to where I was. If I was happy that all regret would be incidental because it was required to achieve said happiness.

But would if I am wrong. I recently saw a movie (a cute romantic comedy) that put my point of view in question. What if mistakes can't be undone? Maybe regret should be harped upon because it has led to your undoing. But if that is true then what is the point of regret? If something can't be undone than is regret simply a tool welded for growth. How can we move on and grow if regret glues us to the past?

My current issue of regret swirls around the little moments in life that I missed. Like never talking to that guy in college. Or never keeping in touch with that simple friendship. I feel as though my life consist of a series of regrets and nothing else. Is this because I lack the confidence to stand behind my decisions? Is it because I hate myself for being cowardly? Or is it because I feel the future holds no light for me and I'm enveloped in a past that binds me to my future?

In the end I know I will regret all the regret that overwhelmed my life. I feel as though I have learned nothing from my regrets. I live a life of could have been rather than could be. The thing about regret is that me tend to romanticize it. We turn our past into what society has done to the fifties. It was a simpler time. Everything was black and white. Young teenagers went to the soda shop in their poodle skirts. People forget that the fifties was fraught with racism and sexism. Regret works the same way, the only difference is because it never really happened, there is no way of knowing what it might have been. We always romanticize regret in that me assume that things would have been better had we done the thing we regret not doing. It's kind of like how we assume that if aliens exist that they are going to be smarter than us earthlings.

So, I will be content with my notion that things that are suppose will happen and when they are suppose to. Maybe if one of those regrets wasn't a regret but an actuality, then my life might be ten times worse. Traces of the past will always haunt us and that is ok as long as they don't control us. It's justified to look back as long as you pay attention to the road in front of you. But I don't know, maybe I will regret saying that.

I am so paranoid

I'm so paranoid that I am afraid of losing things that I don't even care about. I'm scared of being fired from a job I merely put up with. I'm freaked out about being killed thus ending a life I'm impartial to. Maybe it's not that I'm scared but rather just a sign that I am the ultimate control freak.

I don't know if I am more afraid of failure or success. The biggest fear I have is the truth. For most the truth will set them free, but for me it is merely a lock and key to a prison. Reality is the ultimate punishment for a dreamer. Fear is merely another weapon in the fools arsenal, for fear is another thing that we can control. It's an internal implication that our mind manifests to deal with the outside world.

Fear precludes actual living but solidifies the walls of the internal world created. I'm paranoid to do anything for fear of the consequences thus I do nothing. I fear death because I am not living. I fear contentment because I am not content. I fear love because I am not in love.

My only weapon against fear is my disillusion. I am prolific at creating something out of nothing, and nothing out of something. But now my walls are crumbling. Paradoxically the only thing that can keep me from the dream state is being tired. My brain can't move at lightening speeds. My brain runs on water time. My mind is Einstein's relativity in action.

Work compounds the deceleration of my brain. The sound of boredom radiates through the hollow soul of the office. When the elevator dings you check the life running through your veins at lobby level. Inevitably when you go to pick it up at the end of the day the valet has taken it for a test drive leaving it a little worse for wear when you put it back on. Work creates a slow vacuum for the soul. It's a vacuum that never seems to be filled. I suppose a blackhole seems more appropriate, it sucks you in never to let you out.

The clicking of the keyboard has become my tell tale heart. Every stroke taunts me. Click. Click. Click.

The only thing that keeps me amused is the alternate reality that I've develop, where my co-workers live. The setting is the Real World house. I suppose a college dorm would be more like it with 125 employees. 125 strangers picked to work to together. This is where people stop being polite and start getting real.

Each character has their place in the story. Everyone contributes their own idiosyncrasies to the game. They will become known and referred to by such attributes. This will not be a story of reality but might possibly be a portrait of insanity.

My work day

My work day begins about three or four hours earlier than the average worker. At 6am I am at work, this is the unfortunate drawback to living on the west coast and working in the financial industry. Basically, I work in a time zone three zones away from the one I live in. I'm in a New York Time zone state of mind.

However, once I arrive at work my day consists of the same mundane tasks of every other working stiff my age. I do a few meaningless busy body tasks before settling in to the bulk of my work. Answering the phone and surfing the web. I'm being paid to be a teenager.

Another problem with the financial industry is that everyone is highly suspect, so the company intensely monitors all forms of communication and all electronic mediums. In other words, everyone please wave "hello" to the corporate monitors viewing this transaction. "Whatup G?" By G I mean government or Big Brother.

However, I have created a strategy to keep the monitors at bay. Since the handbook refers to "excessive" use of the internet as being unacceptable, I've decided to approach it from a different angle. While I spend the first four hours of the day surfing the Gap website, I wait until just before the moment the monitors are going to email me or my HR and then I make sure to check my bank account and my credit card. This, I believe, appeases them once they remember how little they are paying me. Then I proceed to Bananarepublic.com.

I know that it is "necessary" to screen employ transactions in such a corrupt industry, but it is never the big man who falls. It seems to be the little punk like me that takes the whipping. The frontline always gets shot first.

I'm so tired my body actually hurts. An older broker just gave me a cookie. It's really cute, he makes cookie every week and passes them out to the office. This week they were chocolate chip, one time he made these amazing chocolate marshmallow brownies. Yum.

The pregnant broker gave birth to a baby boy last night. It is very exciting but mostly for my own selfish reasons. I always got so nervous when she came down the stairs in front of my desk. She would almost skip when she proceed down and I've seen way too many soap operas to know that stairs and pregnant women are never a good combination. I wanted to tell her to take the elevator but I've seen way too many primetime shows to know that elevators always tend to induce labor. It got to the point where I just want to find someone who would take things up to her so she could avoid the six floor all together. But alas with the entrance of the little guy into the world, my fears have been subsided. And I don't have to worry about being forced to deliver the baby. I was certain that I would be assigned by management to attend to that task because that is the kind of project they like to justify giving me. I live in the gray area of my job description, but that is a whole other rant.

Well, back to my quasi-work. Time to mind the Gap.

I have no clue what I am doing.

This my friends is my first venture into cyberspace. My first blog. I do like the word blog, it reminds me of my favorite poem which ends with the lines: "To tell your name the livelong day to an admiring bog." While I was recommend to begin this blog venture, there are a few things that prohibit me from fully divulging my secret thoughts. So, I've come up with a few rules. They are as follows:

1. Do not attempt to correct my spelling or grammar. Like Mark Twain said,"I don't give a damn for a man that can only spell a word one way." I like to write in fragments. They're good. Deal with it.

2. This must only be read while at work. 75% of people's waking hours are spent on work or work related things. The last thing you should do in your non-work hours is read about someone bitching about work.

3. Don't hold me to what I say. I'm a compulsive liar. Actually, I'm not really; I lied about that. But I am incapable of saying anything serious. My life credo is: Sometimes you have to laugh at life because you know life is laughing at you.

4. Finally, keep in mind that I am crazy. You have no idea how hard it is to type when you are wearing a straight jacket. I actually have to use my toes which is difficult since I only have eight of them (just checking if rule number three is being enforced). So, enjoy. Let my misery be your humor because yours is mine. Mi misery es su misery.

Let's begin.