Saturday, March 31, 2007

I am a corporation.

You're not the boss of me.

Here in Chez Spryfield, the problem is that no one is the boss of me, which leaves me as my own supervisor. Around the time of the divorce, I used to imagine that when I became supervisor, executive director and president of myself and my free time, I would write the Great Canadian Literary Non-fiction masterpiece or at least publish a few magazine articles or perhaps Do Good Works. I imagined that I would cook healthy meals without wads of dead flesh in them and go to the gym regularly. Things, things would always be exactly where I left them. No one would cut electrical wire with my good sewing scissors. I would keep a journal in which I wrote brilliant insights (as opposed to perpetually whining.)

I have approximately seven years of proof that none of this is will ever happen.

First of all (although this is very old news now) I cried for three months. I did (on the up side, if you can call it that) lose about 25 pounds, 10 of which were necessary to actually sustain life. I began to talk to plants. I lived on a diet of coffee, wine and cigarettes. I wrote volumes - of email to a long-suffering friend, who did his best, from a couple thousand miles away, to keep the sinking ship of my sanity from going to the bottom and me from walking off into a snowstorm and having a sleepover in the woods with a bottle of wine for company. Other than that, I developed a writer's block the size of the western hemisphere. But I looked great in my jeans.

Because no one is the boss of me, I've developed the different voices that exist in everyones heads (do NOT tell me you don't have them) and I've made sock puppets out of them. It's a regular puppet festival at my house. One of the puppets is my supervisor and is in charge of phrases like "you should," "you have to," and "when are you going to..." get off eBay, stop watching your bid on a Pietersite cabochon, start drinking water instead of coffee, get the laundry done, catch up on correspondence, do some writing, develop some for-gawd-sake ambition, wash the floor and so forth.

Another one, The Hanging Judge, comments on my life. It inquires as to when I'm getting one. It remarks that it is Saturday night and I am not on a date. It ruminates about the notion that everyone on the entire planet has a close and loving family and/or a mate, except me. It sighs and expresses the thought that I might have had talent but I'm too lazy and addled to use it and besides, it's too late now. It advises me, unnecessarily, that my place of employ is in the financial toilet and that morale is already on its way to the sewage treatment plant. It opines that my ankle will probably never heal and I will have to wear sensible lace-up shoes until I die. And support hose.

There's the child, who wishes everyone would shut up and let her watch the sky in peace and eat cake for breakfast.

The Piss-ant I picture as a belligerent 11 year old with scabby knees, curses and swears and leaves flies in the drinks of grownups, is in charge of answering the above characters. Her favorite lines are:
"Am not," "Fuck you," "Bullshit," and "You can't make me."

Lately, another voice has joined the crowd. This one is an actual adult, calmer, quieter. She listens a little to the Supervisor and gets some of the work done. She lets the kid watch the sky for a while. And she mostly dismisses the Hanging Judge.

She's saying, right now, that it doesn't matter that some rat-bastard just outbid us for a world-class piece of Pietersite for a lousy two buck difference. The rest of us are just plain pissed off about it. Except for the kid, who wants to watch a movie.

If you feel that you could coordinate in any kind of helpful way, kindly leave a resume. We are in dire need of a corporate takeover.

20 comments:

Zhoen said...

Give that adult some time, she'll whip that motley crew into shape.

You've found your Inner Nanny.

LJ said...

And a spoonful of sugar...la, la, la.
Actually, Zhoe - she's a bit of a relief.

Mr. X said...

"everyone on the entire planet has a close and loving family and/or a mate, except me."

Not bloody true!
- It just feels like that. (As we can oh so much attest to).

"Saturday night and I am not on a date"
- neither were we, or millions of others, so what?

It's never too late. We managed to get some vestige of life recently after a very, very, very long time, so you can as well. Hang in there. Or hang around there, as the case may be *grin*

Install the 'Happy bunny' module who tells the world to sod off and smiles a lot. She'll work nicely with the adult.

Now get out there and flirt, woman!
Especially if you can still get into the tight jeans...

LJ said...

Thank you, Mr. X. The Hanging Judge is never correct and is in charge of extremely bad attitude. At this age, he still yaks, but it's a lot easier to blow him off.

I am seriously considering the Happy Bunny. There is a Jungian writer and therapist, Marion Woodman, who calls untroubled people who never seem disturbed by deeply meaningful and unanswerable questions "Happy Carrots." Do we have a theme here?

Anonymous said...

oh lj, this is so good that I think you should carry on exactly as you are. I find you hugely fascinating, and the only suggestion I would make is, write more more and more because I love it, and I'm sure a lot of others do too. :-)

Darkmind said...

My company is undergoing some restructuring. I have been trying to give Happiness a raise for some time. He works hard enough, but it just never seems to be in the budget. On paper there seems to be enough, but I think maybe there is some embezzlement going on somewhere. Note to self: get with Archives and Accounting on this matter. If only we could file for chapter 11 and start over...

LJ said...

EM - If I have to keep up curtsying, I'm going to trip over my ego and break something. Something new. Say an elbow. Grinning. Thanks and the same back to you, indeed.

D - Ahhh. Chapter 11. Now there's a thought. A complete restructure. An embezzler. I wonder if I have one of those. That would be the one skulking around without talking, right?

Tracy Hetherington said...

You guys have a corporation? I think mine's a non-profit that keeps applying for funding and making keychains/bookmarks with logos on them. Maybe cookie sales drives...where the cookies sell for less than the fundraising committee pays for them wholesale.

LJ said...

We have Enron. At least yours is Poor But Noble. I'm sorry. I know how thin Poor but Noble gets, honey. I owe you 25 letters, don't I?

Mella said...

At least your inner child is old enough to just swear at you and demand movies. Mine's still slinging poop around the house and demanding powder on his bum. Wait...that's my external child.

My inner child is the one whining that she's stuck cleaning up his mess.

You're fascinating - and should write a novel, a collection of entries from each of these sock-puppet personalities. I'd buy it.

Darkmind said...

Wait, all you have to do is write down what the voices say and people will give you money...BRILLIANT!!

LJ said...

Mella..no doubt the inner child of most mothers whines. I laughed out loud at "external child."
I'll call the book, "Absolute Twaddle." Now what publisher specializes in twaddle, do you think?
D...it is brilliant isn't it? I think you might have material for a three volume set. And I'd buy it, too.

Zhoen said...

Two carrots walking down the street, BAM! car hits one.

Later, the doctor comes out.
"I have good news and bad news. The good news is your friend will live. The bad news is he will be a vegetable the rest of his life."

LJ said...

Har! That's GREAT!

herhimnbryn said...

Corporate takeover unlikely, unless sock puppets are willing and able to be perfect employees, thus allowing management to drink wine, wear jeans and arrive late for work.

LJ said...

But, but...the sock puppets are already doing that!

Anonymous said...

This reminds me of a t-shirt I should get for my psychologist girlfriend:

"I hear voices... and they don't like you."

phlegmfatale said...

I'm the last on earth to cast aspersions on your sock-puppet theater. Indeed, I think yours is the very model of organization, as it's never occurred to me that there are actual different entities amongst the nattering nabobs that haunt my head. Your way actually makes sense. I just have sort of thought of them as one great malign universal id begging me to get off of its cloud. Bastards!

LJ said...

Oh Phlegmy. I would LOVE to know about the corporation in your head. Consider that a request.

phlegmfatale said...

Oh, I don't know about that - I myself am a little scared to delve too deeply into those murky depths!