It's quiet in here... too quiet.

There are a few unusual things about my new office. The first thing I noticed was that, on the bus station platform and even at the bus stop outside the office, the people in this part of the city stand in tidy line-ups while waiting for the bus, and then board in order. The buses are fairly packed at rush hour and these queues make for some funny use of space -- People snaking all over the place. I like to freak everybody out by standing randomly somewhere and then watch them get all tense when I board the bus out of "turn".
My main concern these days, though, is the oppressive silence of my office. Yes, we are all attentively reading. That's our job and it is easier to do when there are no noisy distractions. But there's something eerie about coming in to work and it's quiet. Leaving and it's quiet. Nibbling my lunch in slow mouthfuls because for sure everyone can hear me crunching. The girl right next to me whispers into the phone to her fiance, because, yup, I can hear every word. The most noise comes from the whirring HVAC system, which kindly provides our office with constant near-Arctic temperatures. And my keyboard. It's the clackiest. All my surrounding cubicle-buddies must be wondering what the heck I'm typing (uh, that would be lengthy personal emails and my BLOG, duh) since I have no need for so much clackity-clacking while doing actual work (a comma here, delete an extra space there).
Possibly as a result from the overwhelming lack of noise, my coworkers have a kind of stunned, fearful expression whenever I talk to them. Like little nocturnal animals blinking in the glaring sunlight. I've tried to be really friendly - we all know that I would be perfectly capable of slouching in to work and home again without any human contact and I'd be just fine (I've done it before, and I still hate you, data-enterers at the WSIB) - but I really wanted to have a positive working environment. It's just hard because when you say hi or socialize with anyone, the entire office is unofficially part of the conversation. I joined the lunchtime Pilates group. Pilates is a really great way to bond with coworkers because you get to a) see them in their underwear in the changeroom and b) see them "rolling like a ball". I joined the Tuesday afterwork yoga class (Fitness Tip of the Day: Thong underwear and yoga make poor partners. Sure, it gets you all in touch with your mula bandha, but Child's Pose is supposed to be restful, not a little bit naughty!) Still, when I see my coworkers darting between their cubicles and the elevator, or in the kitchen, everyone seems a little shy. It's making me shy. I wonder if it's because everyone is feeling two-dimensional from staring so intently at a computer screen all day. Or if everyone is a little ashamed because of the content we've been reading. There's an alarming thought: it isn't stunned shyness, it's flushed excitement being repressed!
Where all this is headed is that I was responsible for a rather alarming break in the silence the other day, and since I can't confess it to my stunned and/or repressed coworkers, it's coming out here. Mid-afternoon, I decided I would just quietly let one slip out, but instead let out a big sharp bark of a fart. I waited in the ensuing total silence for some kind of a reaction. None came. Now, I react to farts (or "biffs" as we charmingly called them in my house when I was wee) like a 9-year-old boy. Hilarious! In fact, I'm giggling (silently) again as I write this. So - was it mistaken for a drawer squeaking closed, or an unusually creaky chair? Or was everyone sitting silently in their cubicles wondering WHO DARED?!? How's that for a noisy distraction?

Modern Vocabulary

We need a word that expresses the instances where a song randomly playing on your personal MP3 device is strangely and coincidentally appropriate to the situation you are currently in. For instance, one of my first days at work here at the Romance Factory, I walked up the front steps to the Yeah Yeah Yeahs crooning: "There is no modern romance." Or a couple of weeks ago, on one of the first noticeably crisp and cool fall days, I arrived to Travis' "Luv", which contains the elegant lyrics:
The summer didn't bother getting up this morning
So all the trees forgot to wake
Dropping all their leaves on the ground below them.
And today I rolled in to The Darkness declaring: "I believe in a thing called love!" Sure, a disproportionately large number of songs are about love, so I have a higher-than-average chance of encountering such world/music alignments, but I'd still like a word for it.

I suggest:

SERENDiPODIPITY : The phenomenon of a random but agreeable song played by a personal music device that coincides with the listener's current mood and/or situation.

Hockey is so Awesome

That's me, Number 7!

I love hockey. This continues to surprise me, considering that I hardly ever watch it on TV, and I've never really been one for team sports or anything that I wasn't immediately good at. Nevertheless, I have come to crave the feelings associated with hockey: Cold air rushing into your heated lungs, the echoing vastness of the arena, mouth tasting like iron from the exertion of skating full-bore down the ice. Once a week is not enough. I've gotta get some game on!

Romance Plagiarism Project #1

http://mmallinson.blogspot.com/2006/09/romance-plagiarism-project.html


Anita spun around at the sound of a powerful motor pulling into her driveway. The air left her lungs in a rush when she saw it was Bryce's pick-up truck. She nearly dropped the trowel in her hand. Determinedly, she turned her back and focused again on the flower bed she'd been working on. She heard the truck door slam, and could picture perfectly in her mind Bryce's athletic body, nerve-taut, climbing out of the truck and striding across the lawn. From the glimpse she'd caught of him earlier that day, she knew he was looking handsome in chino pants and a short-sleeved shirt with a muted pattern of seashells. She dug fervently at the moist earth in front of her.
"You shouldn't believe everything you hear in this town," a husky voice said from behind her. She whirled around and fixed him with her frostiest glare. "I only believe things I've got proof of!" She declared, raising her chin in defiance.
Her eyes ran over his rugged countenance, taking in every familiar feature. She had stared at Bryce so many times before. It hurt her to confront him about this.
"I know that you're in love with Tammy," she choked out. He stepped back suddenly, heavily, realization hitting him like a gale-force wind. Could this really be the source of her ill-temper over the past few days? He ran a rough hand over his stubbled chin, and through his dark, unruly locks. His nose crinkled in dismay.
Staring down at the upturned earth all around Anita's feet, he finally managed to say, "Tammy was my dog. If you overheard my conversation at the post office the other day, you must have missed the beginning... I loved that dog like no other companion. I'd never even felt that depth of emotion before. That is...until I met you. You opened up a whole new world to me." He looked up. His gaze met hers and time stilled.
Anita's mouth hung open in shock. She was overwhelmed, amazed, uncomprehending. Her anger vanished immediately as she realized how mistaken she'd been about Bryce's true nature. All this time, she'd thought he was holding back because he was involved with some other woman. Now she understood, as relief washed over her, that the emotionally-wounded man needed to be taught how to love again.
She stepped closer to him. Her internal temperature had skyrocketed.
"I'm sorry, Bryce," she said softly. "I never would have been so cruel to you if I'd known that." Her voice was like a spring breeze, fresh and warm, and the first truly comforting balm to his wounded ego. "But still," she continued, "who were those flowers for? The ones I saw you carrying down Main Street?"
He narrowed his eyes and peered at her. "You," he said simply. "The flowers were for you. But I'm a coward and I never brought them over."
With that he came right up to her, took the gardening tool she was still holding out of her hand, and gently held her delicate hand in his coarse one. She tilted her head to gaze up at him.
"I'm through being afraid," he murmured, his lips almost brushing hers. A low moan escaped her throat as their lips met. He probed the line of her mouth with his tongue until she opened to him. She felt so much hope and promise in his kiss, mirroring her own desires. As they slowly collapsed onto the lawn, his mouth devoured hers, releasing their pent-up emotions in a blinding, mind-numbing blending of mouths, hearts and passions.
This was madness! She'd been furious with him only a few moments ago, and now here they were locked together, rolling around in her front garden. She was brought out of the moment for a second as she thought with regret that her award-winning peonies would be crushed. Madness! But with him, now, tonight, madness was what she wanted. Her senses were finally alive, botany be damned!
The soft earth beneath her was cool and damp. She could feel the slightly gritty texture of the dirt rubbing the backs of her arms and legs. Then, as he caressed her, gently at first but then with growing ardor, she could feel only him and his touches. The outside world ceased to exist and there was only the two of them, touching. She anticipated no less from him than this total annihilation of her senses.

The Romance Plagiarism Project

Ripped from the Pages of Real Romance!

So many words. So little plot.
In my new job, I am being exposed to uses of the English language that I do not ordinarily encounter. After a few too many over-the-top similies and some overwrought exposition, I started writing down outstanding examples of this oh-so-specific form of fiction: the romance. Inspired, I have decided that as an exercise, and also maybe in order to understand the minds of the authors whose work I am nit-picking, I will take the weekly collection of these quotes and use them to construct my own brief excerpt from a non-existent romance novel. I will do my very best to adhere to the overall style found in this genre. The challenge will be to create something around the selected quotes, which by the end of a week will be an amalgamation from multiple books and authors, and successfully incorporate them into a story segment. Phrases highlighted in purple are word-for-word stolen from actual manuscripts that are being published. Phrases in blue are cliches or expressions that come up time and time again, regardless of author or book. Further, if the punctuation between sentences is also highlighted, then the whole segment came together. If it is black, then they are two parts that I have forced together. The rest is all me, and my fervent, overactive imagination.

Update from the Pink Cubicle

A few developments at work. On day three, I arrived to find that I already have an engraved nameplate on the outside of my cubicle. I have arrived!
It is freezing cold in my office, so after a few days of shivering and drinking endless cups of hot coffee and tea, I came equipped with a big fuzzy hoodie to wear. The girl in the cubicle to my left brings a blankie. I am preparing a survival kit for next week.
I have also come down with a cold. It's a really bad one. I was all bummed out because I didn't want to be the new-girl-with-the-snotty-nose (no one wants to shake *her* hand hello!) but then I discovered that *everyone* gets a bad cold the first week they start here. It's like initiation. Maybe they need to wear down your immune system in order to make you more emotionally susceptible to the mush you'll be reading. You're all vulnerable, wrapped in your blankie, sniffling, and then suddenly the lovestruck heroine seems so much more relatable. Hey! These books are GOOD!

Regular Job Girl: Day One

I woke up early this morning after a restless night of waiting for the alarm to go off. Got all ready in a nice outfit. Then, my Sugar Daddy walked me to the subway. I'm Metropass girl now. Off I went, to work at a regular job, for the first time in my life. That's right, we figured it out last night. This is the first time that I've held a position that will go on indefinitely. I've certainly worked before - freelancing long hours, three jobs at once in different parts of the city, each requiring different uniforms, and temp jobs that stretched out for six soul-destroying months - but this is the first one where I am, ostensibly, in it for keeps.
The company seems pretty nice. Everyone was friendly when introduced, and I got a little welcome baggie with cinnamon hearts, a mug with a heart on it, a bookmark with roses all over it, and more romance novels. I am given the impression that it is permanent Valentine's Day here. I apologize to the world at large if I start wearing only shades of red and pink in the upcoming months.
I have a cubicle. It's my very own. I'm pretty pleased with its location and square footage and am planning a major redecoration soon. I also have a security passcard that I have to swipe in the elevator and at doorways. It makes me feel really official, and also like I belong. I plan on bling-ing it up and getting a fancy lanyard for it.
So far, three of my coworkers have tried to make me eat cookies. I resisted. If I'm going to be sitting down all day, the last thing I need is any help getting an expanded office-worker ass. There isn't a whole lot in the neighbourhood of the office - pretty grim prospects for lunchtime wandering. I expect to be eating at my desk a lot, and also expect to be posting more regularly as a result. Hopefully things will be interesting enough to keep writing about, otherwise I'll just disappear into the pink sound-absorbing walls of my cubicle.
Received some training from various departments. I'm learning to use a Mac for this job, and I may be falling in love a little bit. Such a streamlined, intuitive interface...what can I say? Also was trained to use the voicemail. I have to change my outgoing message every day, although I cannot imagine why anyone would call me, or that two people would call me at once so someone would get my voicemail. I'm a proofreader. I just don't see getting the urgent calls about the typo on page 187. But anyway...
We were going over "house style" prior to me plunging into my first book - which by the title I had hoped was about cowboys, but it turns out it's about single parents in a small town - and I asked just how picky I was allowed/supposed to be. My supervisor lowered her voice and leaned in conspiratorily. "It's not high literature we're making here," she confessed.
I was exhausted shortly after lunch. Probably as a result of getting up earlier than I have in months and months. I was sad when I realized I couldn't nap. I'm sure I'll find a way in the upcoming days and weeks, but I figured it was my first day and maybe should try to at least stay awake for the duration.
Home-time rolled around and I hopped back on the bus. Funny how I didn't feel like reading on the way home.

Final BodyCombat

If there is beauty to be found in violence, I find it at the gym, in my BodyCombat class.
Okay, so it's basically an updated boxercise with a silly name, but I still love it. I have a non-sexual girl crush on the instructor, who is this tall red-headed Amazonian. I think the basis of my crush is that I would like to BE her. I really appreciate that she doesn't hoot and holler like other gym instructors; There's no "You can do it" or "Yeah! Let's go!" in her class, it's more: "I'm sorry Officer, I don't know what happened, I'm just a girl," and, "If you should ever have to use this in real life, remember that the power comes from your butt!" in her commentary. I practiced Karate for a few years, and have done other combatative sports, like fencing, and sometimes a girl just has to get her violence on. The class gives me my "punch him in the face" fix.
What I love the most about it is all the women. Sure, I get irritated at the flailers and the space invaders (I won't get into this too much, or it will become a post about how much I hate them, but there are some people who have absolutely no sense of space and their own bodies moving through it. Maybe it's from my early years of ballet, or that karate, but I know where my starting spot on the floor is, and I always get back to it. I do not drift forwards, backwards, or sideways after kicking or shuffling. Further, while a flailing limb would certainly hurt your target if you actually managed to make contact, it just doesn't have the same conviction, and it certainly doesn't look as cool, as a properly controlled uppercut or hook. Sorry ladies, but pull it together! And enough with the bouncing. She said "cross-jack", not "crazy aerobic dance step". You look like a fool. Go to BodyJam.) but I have faith that in time and with training, these women will also become tough fighters.
Sometimes I imagine that this is a little army being trained. Not that I think any of us should use our BodyCombat moves in the real world. That would be disastrous and ridiculous. However, I do think that all women should learn a real, practical self-defense martial art, like Wen-Do. Because the training is good for women: everyone gains a measure of self-confidence when learning how to roundhouse kick, and it is great to see. There's one move in the current choreography where everyone pretends to be repeatedly punching their opponent in the head. After the opponent has been roundhouse-kicked to the ground. This is a cathartic moment for most, and I thoroughly enjoy watching the diverse group of women of all ages and all backgrounds letting loose and wailing on the invisible soon-to-be-dead dude on the ground. Maybe it's wrong, but I always imagine that the opponent is male (unless one of the flailers is standing right in front of me, then the opponent is her). In fact, I worry a little for the few men that come to the class, like one day we might all turn on one of them and bouncily beat the crap out of him.
Now, as the sweat dries from my last Friday-lunchtime kick-your-own-ass workout, I'm feeling a little nostalgic; I'm all regular-job-girl now, and I can no longer make it to the class. So long, BodyCombat. I'm going to have to get my violence on somewhere else. Fellow subway riders, beware.