Were ya born in a barn?

No, but I work in one.

(Note: When I started writing for this blog, I truly wanted to adhere to the rule of "no discussing work [except in the vaguest of terms]," so I hope this is vague enough. But seriously, who can help it? For 10 hours a day, I'm bound to The Company by either work or commuting to work. That's a good chunk of time, considering the next biggest chunk involves me unconscious and drooling on a pillow. Work has become such a main part of my life that the creeping majority of who I call friends are also co-workers or former co-workers. How can I not write about this place when it consumes a healthy fraction of my day and therefore my daydreams?)

I was born one of those fortunate girls who doesn't have a horse face. I don't gather in gossipy hen parties. Nor am I a cow (well, hopefully not too much of one). I was born in a hospital, not a drafty barn. I drive a car, not pull a wagon. I take showers in a bathroom, instead of getting hosed down 'round back. I eat with a knife and fork, not my face.

And yet The Company treats me and my colleagues like cattle. Well-liked cattle, but still...we're not even free range.

First of all, the main feature (Gasp! Not our personalities?) is the Barn Door. Our ex-Big Wig had it installed to muffle the sound from the rest of the office, but really it's a toy he swings open and shut like a two-year-old when he takes guests around for the grand tour. No one simply calls it "a door" anyway; it's the Barn Door. How demeaning.

And not long ago, an epiphany sprung up and hit me: the whole room is feng-shui'd like a stable. Desks lined up against the longest walls of the room; each pen, er, work station separated by a partition; the floor, were it a few shades lighter, would almost look like 2-D hay. And maybe I've been in this room too long, but it's starting to look good in the yummy sense.

We even work on a regimented schedule, like farm critters do:

08:00 Work begins
10:00 First 15-minute break begins
12:00 Lunch

Lunch at noon is when they herd us out to the lunchroom to graze, chew the cud, and cluck around.

12:30 Resume work

We head back to our pens so The Company can keep milking the effort out of us.

15:00 Second 15-minute break begins

But every now and then, we're given a treat, like a birthday cake, barbeque, or bonbons, and we all hoof it down to the lunchroom to collect our prize. The Company loves us! we exclaim. But in another 15 minutes, it's back to work. No grazing here for long.

17:00 End of the work day

After a few more hours pass, The Company quits milking and riding us for the day. The pigs, cows, cocks, chickens, sheep, asses, and mother hens all ride off into the sunset.

But we're not unruly animals. We're people—with families, not herds; homes, not coops; kids, not offspring. We'll eat our dinner off fine china, not out of a trough. So why is it that for eight hours a day, five days a week, we're treated like animals? Is it that human beings as a group are untamable, unpredictable, and unkempt? Do we really require dress codes, regimented break and meal times, and memos to keep us civil in the corporate barnyard? Does The Company, and others like it have so little faith in us working responsibly between 8 am and 5 pm that they use the laws of the animal kingdom to "behaviourly modify" us?

Cakes and sugar cubes can only satisfy the beasts for so long before the beasts get restless in their pens. Acknowledge us as humans, damn it!

If Jane Schmo needs a smoke break 14 times a day, let her have it—a good person will make up that missed time. If John Doe needs to get to a non-work appointment, let 'em. If my stomach growls and my work is caught up to a reasonable point, let me head out for lunch at 11:37 (because I'm hungry) instead of 12 noon (because The Company says so). I don't want a parking lot anally ordered into who-gets-what-spot or segregated from the "outer lot beasts"—it makes me feel fenced in and claustrophobic. Let us flow freely, yet safely through each other's lives.

The human world is calm and in order, but we can't find out what exactly that is or how it works unless we give up this barnyard society.

I am not an animal.

- Ewe/Girl on the Corner (I wrote this during my sanctioned lunch hour!)

The Beginning of the End

I bought some make-up the other day. That may not seem like a big deal to anyone else. Trust me; it is a huge deal. Cause here’s the thing. Make-up is the beginning of a very short road to being elderly. I bet you can’t name one old woman who won’t leave the house without “putting her face on.” There is a certain age that a woman decides that her friends, family, and even perfect strangers should not, under any circumstances, be forced to look upon her naked face.

Next in the short road to elderly-ness is being paranoid. Now that I’ve bought make-up, I predict that it won’t be long before I’m tying my purse handle to the shopping cart and shredding every piece of paper that comes into my home. I’ll start asking friends at lunch to “please watch my purse” while I run to the ladies’ room and I’ll refuse to order anything on-line.

Then it’s a slippery slope to wearing pastel-coloured polyester pants with elastic waistbands and shirts with kittens outlined in sequins. I’ll have short, curly salt-and-pepper hair, beige nurse-shoes, and eyeglasses hanging by a chain.

I bought make-up. I’m afraid.

Itchy Feet

I have a confession to make. I, Nan Eff, suffer from itchy feet. I’ve racked up credit cards, told white lies and missed spending my own birthday with family and friends just to scratch the itch. And yet, in the same way a gambler does, I lie awake at night reliving the last fix; dreaming of the next.

Vancouver, Frankfurt, Spokane, Budapest--they’ve all satisfied temporarily. I’ve been content to walk through torrential rain just to drink a latte at a Starbucks in Vancouver, and more than happy to carry 30 lbs of personal belongings on my back through the streets of Frankfurt to eat pasta in a diner. Both of these things I could have done at home, but neither would have made the itch go away.

It could be hereditary; my grandmother rarely spends more than a month in one place. Or maybe it has to do with my commitment issues--every time things get a little comfortable the itch gets worse.

But mostly, once you’ve breathed in the humid air of the Danube, eaten sweet poppyseed dumplings in Prague and wandered casually through a Sunday market in Cracow, you know something different exists.

And that something different might not be something better, but having experienced it, having translated unfamiliar signs and adjusted to illogical store hours, is enough to remind yourself who you are and what you are capable of doing.

Don’t ask me where I want to go next; I can’t tell you--I want to go everywhere. I want to experience cockroaches in my bed in India and losing my passport in Kenya. I’m willing to try dog meat in Korea and frog legs in Peru. I could have my bags packed in 15 minutes, and wouldn’t think twice about charging another flight to my credit card. You think I’m exaggerating? Try me.

I have nothing to say

I've never written for a blog before. I've read them though, so I feel like I'm an expert on what is and what isn't a blogworthy subject. All the same, I have spent the last two weeks trying to decide what to write. I've come up with hundreds of ideas (well, tens of ideas, but that doesn't have the same ring to it). And all I've ended up with is a list of subjects that I think are unblogworthy. Subjects that nobody in their right mind would ever want to read about. Naturally, I've made a list of some of the subjects I won't be blogging about.

1. Recipes.
My aunt's brother-in-law's wife's great-grandmother once made some peanut butter cookies that my uncle's father's friend Tom really, really liked. I know you're all thinking that you must have this recipe. I mean, Tom really loved these cookies and so it's pretty much guaranteed that these are the best peanut butter cookies that you'll ever taste. Seriously? Is there anyone out there who needs this recipe? Doesn’t everybody already have a peanut butter cookie recipe, and is anyone really thinking, “I’ve always loved my own peanut butter cookie recipe, but Tom has never raved about my cookies. Maybe I better try this random blogger’s aunt’s brother-in-law’s wife’s great grandmother’s recipe that random blogger’s uncle’s father’s friend Tom really liked?” Don’t worry I won’t be blogging about recipes.

2. My fifth birthday party.
I wore a yellow dress with a green satin ribbon belt. I don’t actually remember, but I’ve seen pictures. Ironically I seem to be pretty happy, despite the fact that my mom went and got all my hair cut off so that the only way you can actually tell that it’s a girl in the picture is the yellow dress with the green satin ribbon belt.

3. Mustaches.
Mustaches don’t really lend themselves to good blogging fodder. Besides listing off different kinds of mustaches, what else is there to write about them. Sure I could tell you about how you can tell what kind of man someone is by how he dresses his upper lip, but that could just become a bitter diatribe about stupid people I’ve met in my lifetime and who really wants to hear that. Mustaches are not something I’ll be blogging about.

4. Work.
I have some great work stories. And great work gossip that very few people know. I could go on and on about things I’ve heard about certain disliked people in the office, but…alas…blogging about work is off limits. Shoot. I really wanted to share.

5. Music.
If you google “music blogs,” you will get over 71 million hits. I’m guessing (because the first sentence took all of my research skills) that most of these blogs speak somewhat intelligently about the subject of music. I do not. I am not at all sophisticated in the way of music. I can’t discuss the riff in the fifth stanza; I do not know the difference between a violin and a viola (besides the obvious fact that one of them has more letters than the other). I don’t know everything there is to know about any genre of music; I don’t even know the names of most of the bands that play songs on my current radio station. I do know all the lyrics to the songs on the RENT soundtrack. I can sing and play drums with all the songs in RockBand (I can’t play the guitar, though; it hurts my thumb). All I’m trying to say is that I won’t be blogging about music.

That’s why I don’t blog. I have nothing to say. I’ll keep thinking though; you’ll be the first to know as soon as I think of something blogworthy. Promise.

A quick n' dirty blog

Hmm, a blank text box. I know what you want from me. You have a one-track mind. You want me to blog in you. Well, maybe I'll just turn off this screen and twiddle my thumbs, or go for a long walk, or take a cold shower—because you're not getting any of my words today. No sir. You're just using me for my fingers and my brain just so I'll put cute, serif-y letters in you forming snarky and quasi-entertaining sentences. You don't care about me. And I don't want anything from you.

Okay, I'll admit it was kinda fun when we wrote about hair metal. And writing for NaNoWriMo was exhilarating. But that was long ago, and I'm ready to move on. No more of this silliness. If I'm going to blog in you, it should be a meaningful and beautiful experience. Not just some "quick and dirty" non-sequitur. I'm not some wham-bam-thank-you-text-box kinda girl.

See, now look—we've gone too far already. This is only going to hurt one of us. Just moments ago, you were a pure, clean text box and now look what you've made me do. What if someone catches us, is watching us right now? They'll see me sullying your good nature with my clumsy fingers and bumbling, rambling thoughts. This is not passionate blog-making; this is blogging hard and fast with no regard for the consequences.

And just when I think I'm done with you, when I've filled you up, little text box, you give me more. You spare me an inch and I steal a mile. You're taking all of my thoughts, you don't even care what they're about. Maybe I'll give you my B-material, huh? Save my good stuff for a more worthy text box, a text box that appreciates me for who I am.

Take this then: fingernail growth, sexy grandmas, tractors on the highway, and the joys of ironing.

Don't like it rough? Well, that's tough and that's all you're getting: worn socks, staplers, low-income housing, hairy backs.

Have some more: paper or plastic, coasters, travel packing.

Yeah, it's all random and it's all meaningless. Not like my other text boxes. You don't deserve meaning—just random, pointless blogging. And that's just how you need it, and need it bad. Now here's the part where you say my name.

Say my name, text box.

Say my name!

- Girl on the Corner (yeah, I just made this text box my bitch)