May 27, 2013

• I think I go to movies because I like loud noises.

  I wouldn't've said that before, but I think I'm onto something. I am not joking when I say the surround sound, especially at low levels, has the ability to make me cry. It doesn't even have to be an emotional scene--I just get teary-eyed for no reason but that rumbling bass I can feel in my chest. I never have understood why so many people complain about things being too loud. It's my favourite bit about the whole experience.

  I am also convinced now that I like to go by myself so I can think.
  I went to see a movie after work today, but it wasn't going to be until almost two and a half hours after my shift ended. I went outside and walked around for a while. Everything was closed except the new iced cream shop. It seemed like a good alternative to the bars, which were the only other places still open (and where I was 100% more likely to run into my coworkers), so I went in and got an iced cream and sat out on one of the outdoor couches, in the cold.

  For about four days now, I haven't eaten very much. I don't think I'm doing it on purpose. It's just that my body seems to have stopped prompting me to eat, and when I try and force myself to do something about it, I find out after a few bites that I really just can't. It wasn't until I woke up this morning that I even felt hungry, but then I spent the first few hours of my shift feeling extremely sick.
  But I ate the iced cream alright. And I searched for a picture and promptly killed my phone battery (and scolded myself for not charging it before leaving the house). Then I got bored and moved to the outdoor area at the other end of the mall. For forty minutes I sat under a bunch of leafy trees strung with Christmas lights, and I watched the people walking around before they went home, and the people closing up the Italian restaurant for the night. My feet hurt, so I wound up being that creepy person who is sitting at a bench at night with their shoes off. Ah well.

  I think I like our mall a lot better at night, but I like most places better at night, so that isn't saying much.
  It all smells different.

  Anyway. I went to my movie. So I could hear the loud noises.
  I was slightly envious of Randal's story of going to the movie with Toni and Drew. He agreed it would've been better if I'd been there. (Probably because he is still certain that she and I are almost the same person. I sometimes feel like he goes out of his way to have us near each other for closer comparison.)

  We have had some fun conversations lately though. I mean, I've enjoyed them.

  Chris, a server, walks into a theatre we are bussing.
  Chris: So Star Trek is over?
  Toni: No.
  pause
  Chris: Oh. I get it. You're being sarcastic.
  Me: No, she's quite serious.
  Chris: Um. There's nothing on screen.
  Me: Space is very dark.
  Chris: I'm pretty sure I have a college degree--
  Me: --as have I. You understand then that space is dark.
  Toni: I have a degree in the internet.
  Chris: Whatever. Y'all are crazy.
  We watch Chris walk away.
  Toni: I see what you're saying. Space is dark.
  Me: I'm so glad someone understands.

  -----

  Toni: Ohmygosh! You'll never guess what I saw no less than five times yesterday!
  I am 99.9% sure it's something related to tears, which we had been discussing collecting and selling as specialty drinks to the heartless.
  Me: Probably not.
  Toni: Spock tears! I timed it so I would know how long into the movie that scene was in case I had a free moment between bussing.
  Me: I knew it.
  Toni: Wait. You said you couldn't guess.
  Me: I lied? I'm psychic.
  Toni: Oh, right. That. Can I show you something on my phone related to this conversation?
  Me: Mmm. I can make an exception.
  Toni takes her phone out.
  Toni: Look. Isn't it adorable?
  Her phone background would take too much text to explain.
  Me: Does this mean I should find a mirror shot from the movie and set it as my background? You know. To emphasize our 1% difference?
  Toni: *smiling* Um. That's creepy. I won't try to stop you.
  Me: Consider it done.

  I won't pretend I'm not tickled to have someone around who speaks with my same levels of both sarcasm and false enthusiasm (they are not the same thing). With every single other person at work, there are beats in our conversations that make them seem staged (mostly my doing, I admit), but she never misses a beat. We should talk more.

  I've been messing around with ways I talk at work again (gotta be entertained somehow), seeing what responses they get from everyone...I was tricked into using my British accent on a bunch of new people. That irked me a little, but I guess it was a good thing. It's hard to explain, but I think I'd get a similar response if I did a magic trick or brought in a cute puppy--beaming smiles or suddenly rapt attention from everyone around. Exactly what I don't want when I need people to be doing work. >.<"
  There is a different one I've been doing when I actually want to disarm people. It's really stupid of me to do, but mostly it consists of using almost all declarative sentences, lots of exclamation marks, and suddenly changing topics. Like the way your dog might talk if it could. Brandi! I helped clean twenty and eighteen! It was bad. We broke a glass. It was really bad! But don't worry! It's all clean now. I'd like to eat. Can I please go for my break now? I can wait if you want. Then looking expectantly at her while she decides whether it's safe to stand near me. Usually things end in my favour though, so I won't write that one off entirely.

  I did it yesterday and Randal said he didn't understand how I could even pretend to be that overexcited, but it's incredibly difficult for me to tone down my fake enthusiasm sometimes. It almost makes me believe it's real when that happens. If I didn't feel about the same as Eeyore all the time, I'd know it was real. But I do. And it isn't.
  Tristan persuaded me to try and tone down the excitement. But clipped declaratives really do sound stupid when you slow them down. So I subtracted contractions and wound up with a speech mannerism that I probably should use next time Toni and I talk.

  Tristan: So, can I ask who's drinking out of this skull cup?
  Me: I am the only member of the management team who drinks from skulls.
  Tristan: I should've guessed. This trash can probably isn't a good seat.
  Me: I would not call it a good seat, but you can sit on it. I assure you it will probably not fall in.
  Tristan: Um...I guess I feel assured...
  Me: Perhaps my use of the word probably was ill thought out.
  Tristan: *laughs* Don't worry, Spock, I trust you.
  Me: ................
  Tristan: And your expressionless face isn't creepy at all.
  Me: It is very difficult to maintain.

  That really is hard to keep up. Even with expressions. It's hard to keep myself from using apostrophes for any length of time. And I defy anyone who says otherwise. (Kind of like my effort to not use ellipses in this very long post!) I mean, I may even keep at it, just as a challenge to myself. (Not the ellipses thing, but the apostrophes and contractions in my speech.)

  Because that's what happens when you spend 25-30 hours a week in a 6'x6' room with no air vent, and are expected to constantly be looking at hundreds of thousands of tiny numbers every day and make yourself a living daily-planner book because nobody can keep track of anything and you're overwhelmed with guilt if you don't make every effort to ensure that everything you knew needed to be done got done, and that it was done right.

  I almost hate sometimes that I seem to be ideally suited to the job I do, simply because of my unfortunate combination of obsessive compulsion and a guilty conscience. At some point, I began to hate the notion of even thinking of myself as obsessive compulsive...but I still am.
  Example: if you told me to get off the computer and go to bed, I could not just switch off the computer and do so. I would have to go to the bathroom twice to make sure I would not wake up, and one of those times I would have to wash my hands all the way up to the elbows because, all day long, I am often touching unclean surfaces with my elbows so as to not touch them with my newly washed hands.

  It's terrible.
  And, along with stupid stuff like that goes statements like this about OCD, "Its sufferers commonly share personality traits such as high attention to detail, avoidance of risk, careful planning, exaggerated sense of responsibility and a tendency to take time in making decisions."

  That is 1000% me at work. Not in my personal life, maybe, but definitely at work.

  And I sigh. And get back to my original point: I like to go to movies so I can think.
  I thought about all this while I was at my show, and about some new drama that's going on at the theatre...we might be losing another manager, which I feel slightly responsible for even though it has zero things to do with me. I may only feel that way because it's the admin manager.
  My counterpart and I have had four different managers in charge of us in less than a year. One of whom was fired, one who is currently suspended, and one who has proven so unreliable that senior management has refused to reassign this person to another work group.

  It's like she and I are the equivalent of the Defense Against the Dark Arts position at Hogwarts. You get to be in charge of us and bad things happen to you.

  And Wolf started whispering to me about that, and about why it keeps happening, and I wished and wished and wished I could stop being paranoid and stop with these ridiculous superstitious thoughts that get rooted in my brain and that I try so so so hard to let go of and can't once they take hold.

  I just want to be wrong. It's not a good experience to feel so intensely that something is right, when you know your feeling is baseless and probably wrong, and to want so badly to actually be wrong, and it never turns out that way.

  It's why I think I know things when I can't possibly know them, and why my bad feelings are so intensely bad.
  I just want to be shown that this is all not true, and it keeps not happening.

  It's very distressing.
  I went for a very long drive after the movie, and I still don't know what to think.
  It's bad enough that I may even write this much again tomorrow.

  • 5:47 am
  • Leave a comment