So I’m sitting here at work, talking on the phone to the boss and an email pops up from none other than the president. The subject heading is “volleyball.” Apparently, he’s gauging the level of interest in setting up a court.

Man, I’m working for Moondoggie and Gidget.

If you haven’t checked out Google Earth, you should.

I’m just now looking at my street in Cambridge, including a satellite view of my rooftop. The only weird thing about the image is I can’t figure out what time of the day they could have possibly taken it. There are almost no cars on the street, which just never happened.

I’ve been thinking about relationships. Clearly, it’s only a coincidence that I’m now living with M.

I think trust in a relationship isn’t defined by the usual suspects of infidelity or drinking or money worries or howling at the moon. I think “trust” is trusting that this mood will pass. The moods that have you thinking, “Huh, I wonder how deep a ‘shallow grave’ is and how long that’d take to dig?”

I’m confident that this time it will pass, but for now, I’m hiding the knives.

My work paranoia is making me crazy. I really wasn’t made for closet living. Fuck, I don’t even know how to use a closet that well. Weirder still, folks still seem to be nice, and I’m closing in a month’s labor without thinking otherwise.

One strange thing about my current salt mine is the number of people who passed through good, old Cambridge and left. Key words, “and left.” They came, they saw, they did the ivory tower of power bullshit (at least that’s the vibe I get) and left. Adios, see ya, gotta go live among the flower children, predictable, yet ever-surprising, micro-climates and possible earthquake threats.

Among the differences at this workplace from others in my past is the whole reaction to the comedy thang. Back in staid old Beantown, my quest for stand-up comedy greatness (defined as something >mediocrity and pure cock-sucking) was cute, I think, among the bosses above me. Their looks were quizzical, patronizing.

Here, there seems to be some actual spark of interest. I was surprised today by one of the directors, who by carriage and accent seems far from crappy bars and seedy entertainers. She offered to put me in touch with her son’s ex, who performs around SF. Better still, she asked not in a cloying fakey fake interest way, or patronizingly, it was all very “not sure how networking works in comedy, but if you want…”

I’m getting lulled into trusting humanity again. I fucking hate that.

Refreshingly (in terms of maintaining a cynical edge), some of the buzz at work involves Wolfowitz’ new gig at the World Bank. I can’t not think about him sucking on a comb in Farenheit 911, when his name comes up. I’m all up in the world-wide money bags, these days. I even got one of them bracelets all the kids (and middle-aged, Bob-Geldof-loving rockers) is wearing.

There was a little bit of cache back in the research world I left in Boston. The hip and glamorous world of fighting disease and occasionally spotting a stricken celeb. But, now, I’m way less than six degrees of separation from the forces of evil in the world. One of these days, I might be on the phone with the offices of comb-sucking Wolfowitz or Condoleeza “Devil’s Handmaiden” Rice. One step away from a Black Mass or raising the dead, I figure. Rock on.

I think I just heard an Amber Alert. I can’t help, and I’m not sure if that is what it was. Mostly, I just have a nervous feeling of maybe a kind of impotent empathy.

The back door is open, and it’s after 11 p.m. There was a helicopter blade noise overhead and a PA system. The announcement was something about calling 911 if you saw an “Asian, autistic, 15-year-old boy wearing a blue jacket.” Strangely Big Brother, but with heart.

I dunno, cord wood? Grains of sand? I guess pick your favorite trite representation for giant piles.

Actually, grains of sand seem apropos, since the mounting cliches in question are those that favor the California “lifestyle.” Yesterday’s episode featured a beach party complete with beer, blankets and a bonfire.

A while back in the new job mailbox there was some kind of invitation for said beach party. I asked a couple folks what the deal was, but clearly my target question answerers were not the beach party targeted audience. Then, as I was trying to wrap some shit up before the elusive, mercurial (but not assholic) boss lady fled for the weekend, she and other folks in our group were like “you gotta go, it’ll be fun.”

So, a few hustled phone calls to the man o’ mine, and M. turned around and met me in my office. What a sweetie to regroup like that, but please don’t tell him I think so, or he’ll get too much relationship currency on his side of the scales.

It was alright. I, of course, am considerably dorky and shy around new people, which currently is excerbated by my neurotic fear of co-workers. Honestly, people have been swell, but I’m looking over my shoulder trying to peer at the knife between my shoulder blades.

So far, no knife or even the hint of glinting blade. Yet, I’m still considerably dorky and shy.

But, still and all, I sat by a bonfire on a beach in view of the rolling Pacific, surrounded by cliffs, drinking a plastic cup of cheap wine with my boyo by my side. Really, does it get any more cliche than that?

There was a part of me thinking today that this blog might die. I truly can’t decide.

Here’s the dilemma. I’m just not pissed off enough or disgruntled enough or suffering enough. Without a huge chunk of malaise, what you got here is B-O-R-I-N-G. Dullsville.

Face it, a good story needs a little heartache, pain, hardship, something to keep the dramatic tension humming tight and holding interest. Today, my HUGE, ANGRY rant was like “Huh, you know what M.? The joy of impulse buying has been lost. I mean, here we are in the grocery store, and I can no longer get the same lift from a spontaneous soda or bag of M&Ms. You know? ‘Cuz, I can like just get them at work. For free.”

The hardship for today? The faucet fell off in the kitchen sink, so one of us has to call the landlord. Boo hoo hoo.

Yeah, I know, tragically uncompelling dialogue. Numbing, stultifying, who-gives-a-fuck action. I’d gas myself, but I figure it’s only a matter of time before I slip into a coma, born of tedium so rich the mere act of breathing feels like extreme sport in comparison.

Work is like the bizarro opposite of what I have been through in the past. Everyone has been incredibly friendly. From a dastardly, multi-layered bureaucracy rife with secrets and alliances, in which survival was best accomplished by keeping a low head, a sycophantic awareness of place or toxic political capital, I entered a place in which someone who has been truly helpful explained to me today, “Everyone knows their job, there’s no competition or jockeying for position, so generally everyone just helps out.” What the fuck?

In my last place, the board of directors may as well have met in a secret, robed ceremony around an altar in the basement for all the info that was filtered down to the rank and file. If there was an opportunity to close doors, they were closed. Everything was dense, opaque and on a need to know basis.

So, I’m Alice in the rabbit hole, wide-eyed and wondering in a new place that uses the word “transparency” in it’s literature and official reports. Post the board meeting, there’s an open to all staff meeting, where apparently it’s perfectly OK, maybe even pleasurable for folks to interact and ask questions. The president of the not exactly Mom and Pop operation introduced yours truly, by name and everything. Seriously, what the fuck?

The other weird, bizarro effect — I have yet to witness a meeting of strictly self-aggrandizing collection, with bullshit, blustery fronting. At no point, yet, have I felt the very marrow drain from my bones as my life force ceases to cling to this mortal coil, because I have been forced to wallow and wither in meeting hell. It could happen, but so far, I don’t see it. Maybe it’s because there seems to be so much content and context actually being shared.

This place ain’t normal, I tell you. They probably don’t even know from schadenfreude.

Maybe I’ll just convert this space to the adorable playfulness of otters: or maybe the stunning vistas offered in our nation’s national parks:

I watched a little “Nanny 911” on Fox tonight. When did ineffectual parenting become all the rage.

In truth if I were a parent I might suck mightily. I may be completely unwilling to provide even the most rudimentary boundaries for my children and be devoid of common sense.

But, I have one strength that puts me out of reach of the families on Dr. Phil or Nanny 911 or whatever other show features screaming, uncivilized children and their painfully resigned parents. I would NOT appear on television living through my agony.

I’d probably write about it, and maybe talk on stage about it. But let some mean-streaked producer feature my flaws? Nah,

Before I headed west, a few folks I knew from comedy in Boston headed out here. I ran into one of them a bit back, and he said he wasn’t really digging it here, and he missed Boston. He’s staying, but only because his desire to be with his fiancee outweighs everything else. And now, I’ve heard, another one of the native is heading back home, Back East.

M. says he’s not surprised, something about the East Coast and people hanging close to their roots.

But, what about me? I can’t say I’m homesick. I’m pretty home neutral. There are particular people I miss and maybe some New England classics. I can’t find Pepperidge Farm bread at all, let alone my favorite breakfast swirls, like raisin cinnamon. And, I can forget about steamers with drawn butter and a cold one at an outdoor fish place. These people don’t know from steamers.

At the end of the day, though, the people are a trip away, let alone phones and email. I can live without the food, because the tradeoff is fresh fruit and much better sushi than anyplace in Boston could touch.

Maybe I’m just too shallow. There’s no drama in my daily living here. No pining, yearning, whining, wishing. It’s all without affect.

Besides, did I mention my new job is all about free snacks?

Maybe it’s because it’s my second Friday and I haven’t gotten in
trouble at all. In fact, I’ve pretty much done everything I was
supposed to this week.

Regardless, I had the courage today to rummage through the earthquake
kit in my desk’s bottom drawer. The flashlight works and the bright
red ripstop nylon case contains the following:

1 – Food bar 2400 Calories
12 – Water Pouches
1 – Emergency Blanket
1 – Whistle
3 – Lightsticks (12 hour)
1 – Pocket First Aid Kit
1 – Hygiene Kit*
1 – Storage Case

* The hygiene kit contains: Package of Tissue, Soap, Comb, Razor,
Toothbrush, Toothpaste, Sanitary Napkins and Moist Towelettes.

As for emergency preparedness, rock on with the water pouches and the
very heavy, Soylent-Green seeming block of "Food Bar 2400 Calories"
(one square to be eaten every six hours to be broken off in small
pieces).

But, what the fuck with the razor and possibly even the comb. If the
earth seizes and I’m surviving under my office desk, huddling in my
emergency blanket and no-doubt shitting my pants, combing my hair is
not likely. Shaving is completely out of the question. And, I
promise I won’t be checking any guy for five o’clock shadow by the dim
light of an emergency glo-stick.