I think my stuff is what's making me unhappy. Either that, or the idea of having so much stuff. That would be difficult to tell one way or the other. I don't think its the stuff as such that's the trouble, but circumstances around the stuff. For instance, I can't just get up and take off, because I have all of this stuff that I wouldn't want to leave behind. The lovely idea of running away is about getting away from the unhappiness in my head and start anew. But with my stuff. I think I'm psychologically incapable of packing light. Pack Rat! Pack Rat!

      Some claim that stuff itself makes people unhappy, in a spiritual way. "Imagine no possessions..." Y'know, how people can strive so hard to get money to get more consumer goods, but the earning of the money and the goods themselves don't make those people happy. I'm not usually so happy while earning money, but I'm usually not depressed, either. Makes me feel a bit accomplished, though. But my stuff does make me happy. That may not be psychologically healthy, but I think it's true. I like to collect. When I finally get the last piece in a set, I feel fulfilled. That stuff-sized hole in me gets filled-in. Plus, listening to music and watching movies and reading books and all is fun!

      Then we go back to all of these smart people whose work I admire who claim that stuff not only doesn't make you happy, it makes you unhappy. Based on these ideas, I question the apparent happiness caused by my stuff. I feel content. Is that a good thing? Perhaps I should not feel content. Perhaps I should feel guilty for feeling content. Contentment is for the brainwashed masses of suburbia who never question the status quo and are barrelling headlong towards the inevitable fall of their cozy way of life. Right? Yep, sounds like me. I do question a bit, but I don't actually fight the system. Not really. Buying CDs used will not in fact bring the RIAA crashing down. It'll just leave me more room on my Visa for something else to purchase.

      So: Is it really my stuff that makes me unhappy? OR: Is it the fact that I can't afford a place of my own in which all of my stuff will fit that makes me unhappy? OR: Have I, under the sway of anti-stuff intellectuals, decided that I'm not allowed to enjoy my stuff and therefore find less enjoyment in it?

      What the hell does this have to do with anything?

      Oh, yeah. General suburban cubicle slave malaise, right? Exactly!

Posted by quantumfoam at 3:28 PM PDT

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      I work as adminstrative support between two departments that are full of people who are on the phone all day. One of my tasks is to manage the headsets used in both departments. Whenever a headset is returned, such as when an employee leaves, or gets to use a brand new fancy headset, I have to clean the old headset and prepare it for use by whomever else might need it.

      The whole headset cleaning operation is rather icky, what with the smell of rubbing alcohol and the general state of used telephone headsets. It's especially bad when the user wore lots of make up and/or hair product. Eww!

      At some point while rubbing old concealer off with an alcohol-soaked paper towel, a small smile inevitably spreads across my face. I always get reminded of Douglas Adams' The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series, in which telephone cleaners are amongst those sent to their death due to uselessness. And then the humanoid population of the planet that sent the useless people away dies of a disease transmitted via dirty telephone receivers (if memory serves).

      I get paid to clean phones.
     ; )

Posted by quantumfoam at 3:11 PM PDT

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      I've seen far too many people injured in automotive collisions lately. It makes me weepy just thinking about it. And then I had a dream last night about a pedestrian getting hit in a crosswalk. I'm really starting to hate car culture in general. But Radiohead was in the dream, so that was...um, interesting. Not the whole band, though. I don't know where Colin and Phil were. Plus, they were playing at a big stadium and not the Hollywood Bowl, which is where I'll be seeing them later this month.

      Oh! The silliest memory just popped into my head! When Neil Gaiman signed my American Gods paperback at Comic Con this year, he wrote "Dream!" in it.

      I haven't enjoyed many of my dreams lately and feel I should maybe start holding a grudge or something. Not that I ever really could, what with my inability to go a day without checking Neil's blog and all...

Posted by quantumfoam at 11:19 AM PDT

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      Mounting stress due to the new KUCI quarter starting in less than a month, and my department scarcely on top of the matter. I just hope our programming software doesn't crap out on me. I shudder to think of what could happen...

      I spend more of my time reading these days, and so have less time to write, but then my life generally isn't interesting enough to write about. Hence previous posts about the difficulties of other lives that I've witnessed. But here are the fun things I've been reading:

Tessa Ambros' Blog [ http://tessaambros.tripod.com/blog/ ]

      Ever since becoming a fan of Neil Gaiman (about a year ago), I'm far more prone to walking around the office with a big stupid grin on my face, trying not to laugh. Today is one of those days. : D

Posted by quantumfoam at 10:29 AM PDT

Updated: Tuesday, 26 August 2003 10:32 AM PDT

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      That Eyore beanie does belong to the gal in the next cube over! He has returned to his home computer monitor. Eyore's owner is planning to send out an e-mail. Messing with people's plush cube decor is not cool. I worry for my own anthropomorphized "Der Wienerschnitznel" hamburger! and I don't even want to think about arriving at my desk and finding my Pee-wee bobble head missing. It's a cube terrorist! How can such people live with themselves?!?

Posted by quantumfoam at 11:20 AM PDT

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      My co-worker has again taken my cactus into her custody. She says she'll just put it in the window for a little while. It has been drooping lately. My fears realized!

      Oddly, when I returned from a restroom break, I found an Eyore (Pooh donkey character) beanie perched atop the computer's monitor. I don't know how he got there, and he looks a bit too cheerful from this angle. Eyore isn't allowed to look so cheerful. I should feel sorry for him and say, "Oooh, poor Eyore!" I suspect that he might be the possession of the co-worker just across the way, who had already left for the day prior to Eyore's appearance in my gray cube. Having not paid all that much attention to the contents of her gray cube, though, I'm not certain if it's actually her Eyore now perched atop the computer's monitor (mild 'Poe' feeling). I've decided to leave him there until someone else moves him. Years ago, in theatre, I learned: "If it's not your prop, don't touch it!", and I'm sticking to it.

Posted by quantumfoam at 4:28 PM PDT

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      Having put off doing laundry for too long, I had to wear a dress to work yesterday. This required nylons and matching shoes, naturally. The matching shoes, though, have 3.5" heels, and are a little tight across the toes. But they're so cute! And they matched the dress! Anyhoo, my job requires rather a bit of walking about the office throughout the day. This did not make wearing high heels any easier. Not long after lunch, I just left the very cute matching shoes under my desk and duck-walked around the puke-colored carpeting. I was very happy to get back to Mr. Car after clocking out, as I had a pair of loafers in there (can't actually drive too well with 3.5" heels). My feet felt much happier, and I tried my best to remember to never wear high heels again. I always seem to forget just how painful they are when looking at them on a shelf.

      I had to go to the mall last night, as my Macy's bill was due. (Can you tell I'm a Procrastinator?) Most importantly: While walking past various shoe displays, I was not at all tempted by the high heels. Shuffling past those torture devices on sore feet, I was able to remember that I should not buy torture devices for my feet, as I am not a masochist. Yeah for me! (And less to pay off on my Macy's bill next month!!!)

      Here's some stuff from The Daily Telegraph about "Celebrity Worship Syndrome." I've been saying that celebrity is bad for those worshipers for years! I even wrote a lame short story about it. At last there are some wacky scientists to back up one of my rants. Life is good. for this moment, at least.
From AlterNet:
That's the role celebrities play in our lives; they're the adult version of imaginary friends (except we pay them millions). Escapism is less a choice, it seems, than an instinct.

Is JLo your imaginary friend?

Posted by quantumfoam at 10:17 AM PDT

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      Yesterday, the first issue of Neil Gaiman's latest comic book, "1602," was released. Although I had ordered it online about two weeks ago, I just couldn't wait for it to arrive and so visited my local comic shop. After making a beeline to my very own copy of "1602" #1, I wandered the racks a bit.

      I've been lazily trying to find a monthly comic book series to become engrossed in. I used to read the whole family of X-Men comics back in high school, but for various reasons stopped doing so towards the end of the '90s. Some of the X-Books seem to have been re-started recently. The last time I was in "Nuclear Comics," I picked up the first three issues of "Wolverine." It was pretty good, but not my bag. Yesterday I tried again with "New Mutants." The covers are just so pretty, and I used to enjoy "Generation X" so very much (before the series' first creative team left), that I couldn't resist. I bought the first three issues of "New Mutants."

      "New Mutants" kept me interested, and didn't upset me too much with wacky changes to the characters I know and love, due largely to the fact that most of the "NM" cast are all new to me. I still don't like what they've done with Xavier himself, but I'll put up with it for now. Having breezed through issues #1-3 last night, I do plan to pick up issue #4. I don't feel left out of the loop, as everyone is so new, and that cute lil Sofia is so darn plucky! The art's good, too.

      Here's the problem: I had a school dream last night. Not a nightmare, but I wasn't happy recalling it this morning. The last dream I vividly remember (from last week) was also set in a school. "New Mutants" is set in a school. I haven't been in a class myself for a few months now. I have more than enough to read and keep my mind active, but just don't have the time for actual academic courses. Plus, nothing looked very good on the most recent cc schedules. So I'm obviously a little out of sorts, having been in school most of my life. What I'm trying to figure out, though, is if reading "New Mutants" will make this situation better or worse. It could turn out to strangely fill my school-free void. Or it could generally make me unhappy on a monthly basis. Hmmm. I guess I'll just have to wait until the next issue is published to see if the unhappy school dreams continue.

      I really am weird, aren't I?

Posted by quantumfoam at 4:14 PM PDT

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      Upon arriving at my current job, I was given the gift of a little plant with pink flowers inside a wooden box, hand-painted with an abstract flowering farm and hunter green ball feet. I also found that a small cactus had been left at my desk, presumably by its previous occupant. I appreciate gifts and cash prizes. I do not, however, appreciate unwittingly becoming responsible for the well-being of another living thing; let alone two. Although no explanatory card accompanied either plant, I did my best to water them regularly and talk to them a little. Plants enjoy being talked to, right? Maybe I've just seen that Rick Moranis movie too often.

      Anyway, everything was going fine until the weekend. I came back to my gray cube on Monday morning to find shrivelled, not-really-pink-anymore flowers drooping over the edge of their hand-painted box. The now rather limp cactus' tiny flowers were still very pink, but also very dry and resting peacefully atop the potting soil. You see, my gray cube isn't near any windows and therefore receives no natural light. This situation works well for my fair complexion. My new green friends are not so sun-shy, though.

      The flowering plant slowly never recovered. I even moved the flowering plant closer to the cactus, hoping the cactus' tenacity might magically cross-polinate the flowering plant or something. The cactus wasn't doing particularly well, either, but it wasn't getting any worse, so that's good.

      Eventually, people walking past my gray cube would slow down or stop to remark on the sad state of my plants. I'm sure you can empathize with just how peachy that made me feel. I decided that I must be over-watering the cactus. One thing I do know is that cacti don't need much water, and cutting down on the water was something I could easily handle. Therefore, two waterings per week as opposed to the former five waterings per week. The cactus recovery plan lasted but one week, as the cactus did not take it well. I'd had no idea that a cactus could droop so much. They always look so tall and proud out in the desert.

      I renewed watering the cactus daily. The flowering plant became completely dried up and I had to admit to myself that it had died under my care. It had been a cute gift with happy little flowers, and I had allowed it to die. I couldn't bring myself to toss it, though. I think I had an unspoken hope that some fantastical plant fairy would flutter along in the night, leaving me a bright green leaf sprouting from the grayed potting soil.

      Then one day, a co-worker swooped in like Plant Welfare to save my cactus. She asked what I had done to bring the cactus to such a state. I lamented the lack of natural light. She sat near a window and decided to take my cactus into her custody, for the good of the plant. I smiled and thanked her and felt very guilty that my plant tending situation had come to need outside intervention.

      Without the cactus, I at last gave up the ghost on my departed flowering plant. Unceremoniously, the brown plastic pot that had been hidden by the hand-painted box was dropped into the brown plastic waste bin under my desk. I went to lunch. By the time I got back, the custodial staff had taken the dry little corpse with them. Aye, me!

      For two weeks my co-worker gave me updates on my cactus, like some ransomed child. "You'll get it back when it's ready." That's just so specific. Plus, I experienced the joy of said co-worker explaining my un-green thumb to all of our other co-workers. Fun for the whole office!

      While I was dropping off some faxes, the Plant Welfare co-worker declared that my cactus had recovered enough to return to my care. Its ceramic pot was pleasantly warm from sitting on a window sill for two weeks. The plant itself looked considerably healthier than when last in my gray cube. I am hopeful that it will one day look as proud and sturdy as those cacti along Highway 15. More pervasive than the hope, of course, is the deeply rooted belief that my cactus will again begin slowly dying up on my gray cube shelf for all the office to see. The Plant Welfare co-worker will return to chastise me and again take my cactus for her own. Work-related stress is unbearable!

Posted by quantumfoam at 3:55 PM PDT

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      I saw another collision this morning. I was exiting the 5N at El Toro, and in the right hand lane to turn onto El Toro. The car directly in front of me was a silver import, like a Civic or something, pretty recent model. Directly in front of the silver car was a white American boat, probably around ten years old; a Caddy or Olds.

     The light was red. The white car was slowly creeping forward to see if it was clear to make the right turn. The silver car was doing the same. The silver car saw that it was clear and hit the gas. Unfortunately, the white car had yet to move forward. The silver car hit the bumper of the white car, but didn't notice this for a moment, and continued to push the white car forward for two or three seconds. Eventually the silver car stopped moving. I, of course, gasped at the insurance-premium-raising error I had just witnessed. I could see the driver of the silver car hang their head down for a moment. Definitely not happy with him/herself.

      The white boat turned into the parking lot right next to the freeway exit. I had to wait for a couple of cars driving straight along El Toro before making my right turn. Boy, I'm glad I wasn't in front of that silver car.

      This is just another example of how paying attention to the world around (and especially in front of) you is key to safe driving. I witnessed another rear-ending at a red light a couple of weeks ago that was the result of the offending driver not paying attention. tsk tsk

Posted by quantumfoam at 9:38 AM PDT

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