Saturday, August 12, 2006
Current mood: enthralled
in a lot of ways, it's a nice night to finish.
i was feeling somewhat nostalgic about the whole thing... i worked with my two favorite FH directors and they gushed all "what are we going to do without you." it's been such an interesting year...
to be honest i don't exactly have any plan on what to do next. i'm decidedly floundering. i've applied for jobs all over the city with no luck. Sears called me back and then mandated that in order to be hired i pass a drug test. it's not that i even do drugs anymore... i just can't pee in cup and give it to a stranger for no reason. Read Nickle and Dimed not only is it an amazing book, but she also writes this chapter on how bogus drug tests are; they keep poor people from good jobs, they're a total waste of money, and they're a humiliation tactic similar to the way borders seaches every employee's bag at the end of their shift. also, it really startles me how many companies require you to take a personality test before they even consider you for a job. do those tests actually work? what are they even telling you and your future employer?
anyway, so my wake tonight was so totally draining i can't be anything but glad that this whole thing is almost over. in my mind, i'm trying to chronicalize things and fit it into a cohesive story, but it just doesn't work. i'm afraid it's come off a little like augusten burroughs in a dark time.
the guy whose wake it is is only 48. he fell off of a forklift and died of cranial-cerebral injury. the irony is that he had just survived brain surgury for a tumor or cancer or something. it was sort of a miracle that he was alive. he was in remission and had just gone back to work. what saved him is also what killed him in the end: the surgery to remove the tumor also removed a piece of his skull, leaving part of his head and brain unprotected and weak to pressure. so they had him doing all the easy stuff at work, like surveying from the top of a forklift. and he had just developed this new lease on life, and he and his wife were so happy.
when he fell backwards off of the forklift at work, his head split in back because he fell against the exact spot that had no skull. talk about irony. it wasn't even a bad fall... anybody else would have survived it no problem.
it gets worse. at the wake tonight, his widow, who was unconsolable went to sit on a chair and it tipped backwards, so she fell and hit her head on the row of chairs behind her. maybe it was grief or shock or something unrelated to the fall but when she hit her head she was knocked unconscious. her kids totally lost it. i don't blame them. she hit the back of her in the exact same place as their father.
i had to call an ambulence and fill out projected damage sheets and liability paperwork. no one knew whether to follow her to the hospital or stay at her husband's wake. it was bad. real life is actually way more ironic and coincidental than TV and movies. seriously, what are the odds.
i couldn't even write a book about this kind of stuff. it'd be like A Million Little Pieces- no one would believe half of it.
in a year i probably won't believe it myself.
oh well, if anybody knows of anybody that's hiring do pass the info along... at this point i'm pretty sure i can handle anything
Currently reading:
A Widow for One Year
By John Irving
Release date: 23 March, 1999
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