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.

I’m an Easterner who grew up on a solid, non-shifting granite base. I know how to dress for weather and which storms not to spend on the beach (with or without Shelby Scott getting drenched and Natalie Jacobson back in the studio freaking out).

Tectonic plates shifting out from under me? Nope, nuhnhuh, I don’t know nothing about surviving that shit.

In the last few days, some quakes have been rolling spots on this the Left Coast. The other night, as we took a friend out for his birthday, there was a tsunami warning that thankfully became merely a warning, although the quake was real. Some expert on TV explained that it was cool, what with the ground shifting side to side not up and down, so no wave.

Both M. and some smart egghead, UC Berkeley seismologists are saying no big deal. Sometimes they just come like that. But, on the other hand, the same egghead, UC Berkeley seismologists say “Duh, San Andreas Fault, what do you think? Hello. Earthquakes.”

Meanwhile, I strongly suspect this weekend I’ll be stocking up on emergency preparedness supplies. And since he’s the one who got me into it, I’ll have to think hard about whether I share my emergency “personal care and hygiene items” with M.

Tomorrow at work, I might actually open up and look at the emergency kit in my desk drawer.

By the way, mensch that he is M. comforted me with the following: “Don’t worry about earthquakes. You have a statistically much greater chance of getting hurt by a spouse or boyfriend.”

My mother had a peculiar script inside her head that would determine
good deal from charity, which she would be too prideful to accept.

For example, scholarships I received to attend a private university
were a good deal. Money for college based on my scholarly endeavors.

However, financial aid in general, charity and gd-it if we were
charity cases. Instead of helping me by sending in the paperwork the
semester I was in Europe, she clipped more coupons and otherwise came
up with the needed cake herself.

Today, I involuntary lived inside her head for some indeterminate
moments. The snacks and beverages at work, good deal (although Pat’s
voice tells me not to let anyone see me taking "too much"). However,
the free tampon I just snagged in the women’s room felt like charity.=20
Like somehow, you don’t want the boss subsidizing your body.

One of the hard parts of living with someone who’s not just a roommate you can tell to fuck off is that you gotta be caring and shit.

Nah, that’s not really that bad, because M. seems to bring a little bit of nurturing out of my badass self. The hard part is when your days are out of sync, and his rough day precludes your gloating.

Take today. His work is all tense as hell as they plow through the first quarter of VC funding, trying to make sure goals are met, demands faced and ultimately, despite the respite given with funding, no coasting is allowed. Meanwhile, I’m still discovering the little bullshit, happy dance moments as a newbie in a new person honeymoon period.

Today’s joy was barbecued. They told me when I started that there was barbecue on the outside patio during the summer. I expected shitty, catered, pseudo-barbecue, like when my old place cafeteria would have themes — “turkey with all the fixin’s” for Thanksgiving or fishnets draped over the counter for a “New England clam bake” with fake lobster roll and clam strips.

I was wrong. It was the ultra-friendly Facilities guys rolling out a gas grill and cooking up Carne Asada and chicken, as no doubt they’ve done in their own backyards. And, for sure the steak wasn’t the bargain rubber you find at cafeterias.

It reminded me of back when, a million years ago, I worked for a research lab with a rich benefactor’s name on the building. When I first started the entrepreneur turned philanthropist who founded the place was still alive and seriously kicking. (A dapper old dude living large and occasionally just hanging out at his building and visiting.) When he had his last hurrah (during a tennis game with his hot, young wife nearby) there were perceptible changes in the corporate culture without his touch.

I’ll tell you what I learned from those days, rich people sure know how to live.

If you’re a philanthropist, you’re not exactly doing a “let them eat cake” Marie Antoinette schtick. So, while you’re giving back there’s no sense in drinking from the faucet, when Calistoga water is chilling in the fridge.

Relatively content is fucking with my mojo big time. I’m still struggling with how to get these shitty ass posts back to something interesting, instead of something so sweet I want to suck a salt shaker dry just to recover from my own prose.

But, what can an old girl do when her muse starts sounding like “I learned everything I need for my chicken soup soul in kindergarten where I didn’t sweat the small stuff.” Pick your favorite up-lift marketing tool, self-help book and I’m living the lie, but genuinely and for real.

Today’s lesson is the little things. I’ve decided it’s the little things that matter. F’rinstance, take today. I shuffled into the den of the new employer, where I’m still poking through different doors and staircases trying to master the labyrinthian floor plan. I amble on by the mailboxes, where surprisingly there was one with my name on day one. More surprisingly, there’s something there for me. A box of real-live, grown-up business cards and some personalized notepads.

I mention the grown-up bit about business cards, because in my last gig I had the kind of title and responsibility where business cards might have come in handy. Like when I had to meet with people oustside who would need to get in touch with me, or someone came into our office and asked me for one, or maybe when I embarked on managing a multi-site, gargantuan beast of a budget and a little reminder of my contact info in a portable size might have been handy.

I inquired about getting some, since in the grand scheme they were not that expensive, given that there were standard designs, and, I dunno, I thought maybe my own sense of responsibility warranted a little professional polish on the gig. The reply was, instead of the anticipated sign off on the official order form, a suggestion I go talk to the guy who was pretty good at doing that kind of thing on his printer.

Thing is, for once I didn’t want the hand-me-down, home-made, make-do version. I wanted the real deal, and I never understood why I didn’t merit it. So I went without and continued providing my number on a yellow post-it note if asked.

Now, today, I have a job where I’m not sure if I will need to hand out cards. My level of responsibility is clearly a support role and quite possibly cards may only be requested of the folks I support.

Nonetheless, this time around, I got the little boost of someone thinking I might need them, and I didn’t have to ask. For a buck or two, I’m a happy camper with something to pin on my shirt should my brain lose some functionality and I need a reminder.

The little things are also what I realized is keeping my personal life relatively happy. I hadn’t anticipated the kind of life where I mention gas in a post-work caravan and two minutes later I’m being led to a gas station. And, upon arrival M. hops out of his car to wash my windshield.

Little but sweet.

Shit, I think I’m going to need insulin if I keep up this tone.

I had an email exchange with an East Coast buddy about my alleged edge. She was worrying that without anything to piss me off, I wouldn’t have quite the same humor, I think.

I do have the freakish Wacko Jacko getting a free hand to, well, have a free hand. Another fine example, along with Fatty Arbuckle, OJ Simpson and Robert Blake of California juris prudence.

Do you think M. maybe invited me out here, because it seems so much harder to get a conviction? Of course, he ain’t a celebrity, so he could go the way of Scott Peterson if he offs me.

With things going well, though, I don’t have the lemons life hands you to make lemonade and all that other happy horseshit. Nope, out here I got real lemons.

M. mentioned to a co-worker my fetish for Cali flora. I walk around in utter amazement at trees especially, because they, like, have fruit and shit growing off them. Not like crabapples either, but fruit you could actually enjoy. (One thing that surprises me every time I go out on my bike is riding by a freshly groomed lawn. In so many piles of lawn clippings are what look to me like perfectly good pieces of fruit. I first think something along the line of “Someone must have dropped some groceries,” followed by a “Duh.”)

I know, I sound like an idiot or maybe some kind of edited out character transplanted in Gulliver’s Travels, but, hey, I’m an ex-pat of sorts.

Given my fruit freakishness, M.’s co-worker presented him with a garbage bag of fresh from his tree, organically grown lemons. And, for the first time, I’ve held in my hand a lemon bigger than a softball (or as M. pointed out larger than my rack).

Check out the relatively normal-sized lemon on the right and the mango for scale and for a non-fruit comparison, the cell phone.

It’s damn good I’m not gay in a repressive and closed society.
Instead, I was born straight in a repressive and closed culture but
within a mostly accepting family (at least judging by the fact that my
mother would literally have kicked the ass of anyone who tried to
ostracize her son).

I mention that pointless paragraph above only because it’s the closest
correlary I can think of for keeping my website going, but being
chicken-shit scared (or cautiously wise) to make any mention of it at
my new job. I was just thinking of it, when I scanned The SF Chronicle’s website for updates on
Michael Jackson, kiddie diddler extraordinary (or not depending on the
verdict).

The Chronicle has an article on corporate
weblogs and weblog policy.

It makes me think that here in the Bay Area, especially since they
mention a corporation that has some relationship to my new employer,
things would likely be cool. Yet, I’m pretty sure I’ll have
difficulty ever trusting whatever Big Brother entity for whom I might
work.

My case, unfortunately for me, doesn’t fit neatly into the
cookie-cutter policy world. More importantly, I believe now that
regardless of policy and transparency within organizations, the
small-minded and mean can and will use words against you. The
downside of writing in the public eye is that I’m giving the
small-minded a lot with which to work their mischief.

Sad.