Disease Of Normality Is Contagious

Something very strange is going on...
There's something not quite right and I'm just not sure what's happened. Something strange has come over me, and I have reason to believe that I should be worried. For some unknown reason, today I seem to be less violently opposed to this job than usual. The seeds of discontentment have indeed been sown and for the past few weeks have been flourishing pleasingly into strong healthy shoots of anger and opposition. But today, today they have withered and unless something is done they are in danger of dying completely. Today, my friends, an eerie sense of calm has descended upon me and I find myself doing my work almost....happily! Where did I go wrong? What within me slipped up and allowed the obvious brain-washing of society to have an effect? My resolve to leave this god-forsaken corporate world is being drowned out...but by what? Something, but what I'm not entirely sure. Perhaps the normality of society is spreading the disease of acceptance of the inevitable to me. The disease of normality somehow got in under my skin yesterday evening, festered overnight and resulted in this horrifying feeling of contentment this morning. I must fight it, but it will be a battle not easily won. A battle of hardships, myself against the world. It must be done though, lest I find myself at the end of this week willingly volunteering to single-handedly come up with a strategy to increase the profits of the evil evil corporation. Somehow, with the way I've been acting this morning, it doesn't seem so improbable anymore!

What I Could Have Been, Had I Only Tried

Tara thinks I should go to New York, live in a dingy flat, work as a waitress, and try to make it as an actress. Of course, she's advising from a purely selfish vantange, as she's admitted she just wants to have a friend who's a struggling actress! haha I think she's right though. Except I'm going to replace New York with London. I'm just going to go for it. For God's sake, I can sit around here moaning about how much I hate this job, and how I don't want to do this for the rest of my life, how I want to act, but what the hell am I doing about it???? Not enough. Not nearly enough. So that's my plan. A year in Dublin, then on to London, do some theatre, and take it from there. I just want to say that I've given it a shot, and not look back when I'm old and wrinkled and think 'Oh, what I could have been had I only tried'.

Petitions And The Avian Flu

I just got word that the petition that was set up to get me back to Cork (see my Got 'Da Cork Blues post) has been signed by 89 people. (before I go on...isn't that so cool?!)
Apparently I said I'd go back when it got to 100.... hmm
Perhaps now I can have a valid excuse to leave work earlier than originally planned! Great!
So how long exactly do I get after the 100th signature before I have to fulfil my oral obligation and head back to Cork?

On another note, my boss is away for a week. I thought I'd get the week off. Wishful thinking apparently because not only do I not have the week off...I'm being put in charge of the legal department. Yes, I know I'm just as shocked as you. But really, considering the department is comprised of a grand total of 2 people, myself included, it would be pretty logical to assume that when my boss decided to go skiing in Switzerland for a week I would get stuck with his work.
Oh Lord! I actually think I feel a touch of the flu coming on... perhaps even of the avian strain. Might be better if I stayed in bed for a while. You know, just for the sake of the company and all.
That should buy me some time...

ee cummings

ee cummings is brilliant, or so i think anyhow. in tribute to him im writing this post without much punctuation and most certainly without any capital letters. have you ever read his work? you should, because my god some of it is beautiful. he's obsessed with rain it seems, or else he just feels that theres something poetic about rain in general. perhaps there is. people call me a poet just because i write poetry, which people happen to think is good and enjoy reading. does that make me a poet? i suppose technically it does, and i'd like to think i do have a poetic flair about me. at least, i think the world would be better if everything and everyone was poetic. but i also believe conversations would be alot more fun if there was singing and dancing involved. not many share my opinion. i think within everyone is a poet. if you can feel, you can be a poet. only when you're emotionally dead would you find it hard to write poetry, and then i assume your senses would be working fine, which would mean you could still write about what you see, hear, feel, taste, smell.
i was talking the other night to a friend of mine about people in general, and how most people find it hard to go to the cinema alone. he asked if i ever go alone. i said yes. he hasn't worked up the courage yet. i'll admit it took a while before i actually did it, but once you break the barrier you realise that people are more caught up in themselves to pay more than a split second thought to the one over there on his own. so we're thinking of going alone together. you know, sit at other ends of the theatre! just for his first time... and just cause it'll be alot more fun that way haha

ive been reading ee cumming all day; ill leave you with a couple of lines from him

"i'd rather learn from one bird how to sing
than teach ten thousand stars how not to dance"

Slavery Under The Name Of Competition

It's nice to give people things to do. Nice to make them feel important. Make them feel that what they're doing really means something in the big scheme of things. As I write I'm looking around at the people surrounding me, slaving to finish work before some randomly placed deadline. Working hard to do something that is made to seem so important. Really believing that what they're doing is necessary. That no one can do the job like they do. Oh, how we have been fooled. There are a million people ready to take our places. A million people willing to believe that what they have to do is important. It's only importance lies in increasing the profits of those very people who are ruining our lives.

An exerpt from one of my poems:

"Oh, foolish fools that we have become
Marching in time to the same old drum
With State and Society providing the beat
Generic beliefs moving our feet
We are no more individual than we are real
Our god is Authority and before it we kneel"

Live Fast, Die Young

If you had the choice, would you live a long happy life and die an "average joe" so to speak, or would you live a short life of extreme ups and downs, but die a legend?

I was thinking about that recently, especially after I watched "Lady Sings The Blues"; a movie about the life of Billie Holiday and starring Diana Ross. Billie was a legend in her own right. What a voice...but what a life. She went through so much crap and intentionally put herself through so much more crap with cocaine. Yet, she will forever be remembered. Immortalised. Legendary. Like James Dean. He died so young, but would he have been the legend he is now had he grown old, lost his hair and gained 100lbs? No he wouldn't. I have a poster of James Dean, looking into the camera, God he was sexy. The cigarettes, the cool rugged handsomness. No wonder so many men smoke. They want to be James Dean, and let's face it, on some men its just so god damn sexy. Luke Perry has that James Dean kind of thing going on too. But he will never be the legend that James is. Is it because he's still around? Still growing old? Marilyn Monroe was amazing, but would she be the giant figure she is now had she not died in such tragic circumstances? Probably not. Sure she would always have been Marilyn Monroe, but with the withering away of her looks and sex appeal would come the trembling of her legendary status. Mystery is what keeps things interesting. That's why 40's and 50's stars are remembered by us much more than the stars of today will be remembered by our children. There's no mystery when you know every private detail of someone's life.

If I could choose, I think I would rather die young but die a legend. To live a life of passion, to live a life doing something you love, to be ALIVE. Life is nothing without passion; whether its passion about your work, passion about someone, passion for a cause. That's the way I want to live, and that's what I would choose.

Nickname Hiccup

I was just sitting here "working" and.... ok perhaps I should clear this up. I am working, honestly. It's just, I feel that in order to raise my productivity to optimal level, it's necessary to regularly take a break and stimulate my mind in ways other than through reading the nitty gritty of contracts. Not to say that that isn't stimulating...to some perhaps. Whatever floats your boat I guess, and well right now my boat has crashed into a glacier resembling a page and a half clause and my boat is sinking slowing and painfully. I'm drowning in a sea of terms and conditions and it's not very pretty. Quite distressing really. So you see, I write not only for pleasure, mine and yours, but to LIVE.

So anyhow, I was sitting here working, and I got to thinking. About a lot of things really... not least of all the fact that perhaps it wasn't such a good idea to start calling my boss "JB". A nickname is cute, but...now this is just a gut feeling here...i think he just may not be that fond of it. I don't know! Just a feeling! Nevertheless, I've decided to perhaps go back to being old-school and calling him Mr. (insert name here). No matter how young he may be, perhaps he'd rather if JB was confined to the basketball courts (assuming its still 1993 or he still plays basketball).

But thing is, it's a big operation this whole name switching thing really. I can't just go back to the original name too quickly! It'll seem like I can't commit to a name-change. Like I never really believed in the nickname in the first place. Like he really was never a "JB" all along. Ego's could be bruised in such a delicate operation. Perhaps calling him JB has made him feel 'cool', 'hip', 'one of the gang'...give me a break here, I'm trying to put myself in his place, which involves the use of his vocabulary! No, it's gotta be gradual...y'know sort of like I'm not even aware that I'm calling him something different. Naturally rolling off my tongue. Like "JB" was just a phase, a passing fad. Like "JB" just matched the cologne he was wearing this week.

So currently, I'm calling him Mr. B... I know, I'm cringing too! But it's gotta be done! The guy thinks I'm mentally challenged I know. Trying to say it casually is not easy. It's quite hard to slip something like "Mr. B" into a conversation about our financial exposure in a certain boring as hell contract. It's too early to intelligently gauge the reaction, but I'll tell you this much, I can't wait for next week when I can go back to calling him Mr. Berti again!

It's Always Nice To Laugh

It's always nice to have a laugh, and right now I'm back to work after an hour of laughing! I met up with Ismail, a friend of mine, for lunch and seriously that guy should be a comedian! I just laugh non-stop when I'm with him. I think it should be made a rule that when you're on your lunch break, you've got to have a laugh. Companies should set up lunch time comedy shows. Think of the boost for morale! A clown popping out from behind the ficus in the corner every now and then to squirt your boss with water...think of it! Genius! Can't believe it's taken this long to think of it...

Seriously though, I love to laugh and more importantly I love to make people laugh. I do run into problems on that latter point though, because I am really bad at telling jokes! Especially jokes that involve a story and a punch line. One liners I'm pretty good at, but most of the time the only time I make people laugh is when I really don't mean to. Or when they're laughing AT me, which to be honest I don't mind because I continuously have to laugh at myself. One person I do know how to make laugh is my sister Dana. God I love to make her laugh. Just to hear her laugh is so great, and I think thats been the way since she was born. I'm a year and a half older than her and from when she was a baby I would do ANYTHING just to make her laugh. Dancing around her crib, making faces. The amount of vile creations I ate when she got older just to get her to laugh. She'd mix up ketchup, tabasco sauce, mayonnaise, sugar, salt, whatever she could get her hands on and bring it to me pretending that it was something normal. I would eat it just to make her laugh. We have an odd sense of humour, and now 21 years later, although I've put the foot down on anything involving eating something she's come up with, I instictively know what's going to make her laugh. Last night she wasn't in that great a mood, but before we got off the phone I had her laughing so hard. It was nice. I think more people should spend time trying to make people happy instead of making them suffer. I know that sometimes when I'm pissed off I intentionally say things to get others pissed off too. Yet I feel so guilty afterwards. Life is too short! Let's laugh while we can. There'll be plenty of things to cry about yet.

On another note, big shout out to Yousef who is on his way to Canada! He's promised to write letters! Actual letters! I know! See you soon hopefully Yousef, we'll miss you!

I Am Only One; But I Am One.

Came across this quote just now. Beautiful isn't it? Let us make the effort to stand up for what we believe in. And let us hope that what we truly believe in is not war, pain, suffering and violence. The so-called "war on terrorism" has no basis in fact. It is a political myth propagated to pave the way for a wholly different agenda. "Terrorism" exists because we have allowed it to exist, because certain governments want it to exist in order to have an excuse to take actions that otherwise would have been unacceptable. Violence without reason is unacceptable. How lucky for some that the world seems to be giving plenty reasons for military violence to be accepted. In April 2001, a report for the US government from the Baker Institue of Public Policy stated that "the US remains a prisoner of its energy dilemma. Iraq remains a destabilising influence to....the flow of oil to international markets from the Middle East." It was recommended that "military intervention" was necessary. In mid-July 2001, Niaz Niak a former Pakistan foreign secretary was told by senior American officials at a meeting in Berlin that "military action against Afghanistan would go ahead by the middle of October". If the real purpose of the "war on terror" was to capture Bin Laden, how has he managed to elude the US so successfully? To say that one man can stay hidden from what is supposed to be the most powerful country in the world with the best intelligence unit, is to say that he is a genius. Perhaps they never really cared about "capturing terrorists" in the first place? We need to open our eyes, and stop believing everything that is fed into our eager minds through the spoon that is the media.

"I am only one, but I am one. I cannot do
everything, but I can do something. And because
I cannot do everything, I will not refuse to do the
something that I can do. What I can do, I should do.
And what I should do, by the grace of God,
I will do."
EDWARD EVERETT HALE

What Kitchen Utensil Would You Be?

Lately I've taken to asking people what kitchen utensil they would choose to be if they had to make the choice. You'd be suprised how much you can learn about people through that question! Most importantly whether or not they're fun enough to go along with such an odd question! :)
Someone I asked recently said he'd like to be a coffee perculator! Simply because a good cup of coffee makes the world a better place.
Another said she'd like to be the most beautiful thing in the kitchen. Maybe a delicate bone china tea cup, so that everytime someone picked her up they would admire her.
Someone else immediately said that he'd be a big knife!
I think I'd be a cookie jar. Everyone loves a cookie jar. It's the mystery of never knowing what exactly is inside, and then the complete satisfaction afterwards! Plus they're just so cute!

So what kitchen utensil would you be? ;)