Thursday, November 16, 2006

Sunbathing between a rock and hard place

[Health warning: Boring whiny post. This blogger takes no responsibility of injury or risk to reader arising from eye strain or mind numbing boredom.]


I am fed up. Completely and utterly sick of my job. Not the work itself which I enjoy, but the people I work with and their attitudes, and the ever growing politics that happens in offices everywhere but which I've only just experienced. I've been seriously thinking about quitting, but I'm stuck. If I leave now for a new job, I won't get a holiday until I've been at new-job for a year. And that, I desperately need. I can't wait until after my holiday before I quit present-job because I won't last that long. I might just take a running leap out of my very tall building and enjoy the breathtaking view on my way down to eternal work-stress-free peace.

The only other option I can think of right now is to find a hot, unsuspecting, foreign victim and dupe him into marriage, move abroad and get a fabulous job. Get out of this country with it's eternally frustrating annoyances, (electricity problems, water shortages, corruption, traffic police who I'm more afraid of than muggers, sucky jobs, and the friggin air-conditioning that won't work, and as a result of which my brain is melting into a puddle) and the only way I'll ever do that is to marry an overseas stranger and escape this place. I feel like Rapunzel locked in her tower. Only I get to leave at six.

But ofcourse, I can't do all that because I could never leave my mommy who I'm really close to and who I can't live without. Which is also one of the main reasons I did not go abroad to educate myself. Which I sometimes slightly regret, because by now I'd be living the good life, have a great job, enjoying my singledom in cities more suited to fun singles like myself. Not that I don't have a pretty great social life here, or a glam job - for now. Infact, most of my friends envy my work (if only they knew) and my freedom that some of them don't have because they're married with kids and responsibilities. But what's the point of all that if there's nowhere I haven't been before and no one I haven't already met, same old people at the same old places. Last weekend I watched a movie, attended a farewell party, a bridal shower and a house party with the exact. same. crowd. Not one more person, not one less. Dreary dull-dom.

What I'd really like right now is to meet someone fabulous and have a passionate, exciting romance. True love and all that. No chance of that happening though, because I don't see any nice, available boys. And I'm not being picky or anything, it's true. East Africa has a serious shortage of eligible men; somewhat like a man-drought, a testosterone famine. The only men around are old and married, or young and well... kindergarten age. And I'm only half joking. The one and only eligible is getting engaged very soon to an old school mate who I don't particularly like. Boo ya to them.

Anyhow, this weekend, if work and boss let me, I will break free from the grind of daily life and escape to sandy shores and endless horizons. A giggly gaggle of girls at a beach resort out of town, free from gossipy, spiteful stares. Sun, sand, saltwater and snacks. A weak ray of light filtering in through gloomy clouds.

6 comments:

Phil Osborn said...

You and me, sister. I do a 1500 page corporate website for an Irvine Chinese/Taiwanese company, where they treat anyone who isn't family, and especially isn't Chinese like shit. I could go on for the next several days writing out in excruciating detail just how bad these people are, but I think you already have an idea, having read some of your other blogs.

The OC may be kind of an extreme case - plastic people, bored violent yuppie kids, angry latino undocumented, stick-it-to-the-world Asians, but frankly, I wish I could go back to the '60's, when people were real and we had time to do anything that wasn't required (now we can't even do that half the time) - like when you lose power there.

Hoo boy, that dates me. But I'll leave it, anyway. One day fairly soon (I hope), age truly won't matter, as we'll figure out how to undo it, and I will be 16 again, physically, when I was at my absolute peak, and 6 feet tall to boot. What I worry about is that when we all pass on to the next level of uploads and instant personality cloning - as described in Accelerando (available for free download at http://www.accelerando.org/) - that total freedom will mean total irrelevance. What does it matter if you've no one to love?

There's an interesting movement happening here in the U.S., however, that offers some promise. I attended an anarchist conference at Pitzer College earlier this year at which they showed this Indie documentary on "infoshops." It's like the kids - meaning anyone under 25, or who thinks they should be - are setting up these little coffeeshop/bookstore/internet cafe/ places all over Amerika and then living there with their friends and anyone who drops in that needs a space to chill or connect or crash.

I know that the corporate monsters will try to smash them if they start becoming an accepted way of life, but for the moment they look really interesting. In fact, I started having these really vivid emotional dreams in which I was living in such a situation with all these other people - kids, and it made my real life seem very colorless and empty.

To illustrate the difference between now and 1968 here in the U.S.: One of the early radical libertarian publications set up a network of people who would let other libertarians crash in their homes if they were passing thru. This enabled people in that network to travel cheaply all over the country. There was also a movement called "vonu" which consisted of people who liked to keep moving and developed a whole lifestyle based around motorhomes.

Many of them were retired oldsers, but a lot of them were young and just liked to see new things and meet people. They had magazines, APAs, and developed all kinds of solutions to problems, created networks of other vonuans, etc., all ending when city after city began passing ordinances against sleeping in a vehicle.

Amerika.

So, what's it like in East Africa? Do you have pictures? I would really like to travel all over the world, but for now the net will have to do.

Check out my blog:

http://www.blogger.com/profile/26155653

Spider42 said...

Hmmm... interesting, well it does show that it dont matter where in the world you are, life can be jsut as shitty... ive heard many of my female friends make the same complaints and if youre home is anything like mine, i dont blame you!

But like you said at the end of the post, a little ray of sunshine, and though im not exactly an optomist it is my belief that lifes a big, irritating and trying test of wills - bad and mundane shit happens bout 80 odd % of the time.
The catch is to get past all that and look for that little bit of good times, cos thats what youll carry with you till the end and will get you through the next load of crap headed your way.

just a thought, dont take me too seriously, i talk too much anyhow...

Cheers...

Geek Goddess said...

Phil - Wow the whole concept of lending your homes to relative strangers is just a little bit scary. can you imagine what would happen if someone tried doing that now? you'd wake up one morning and find all your furniture gone. thats what would happen here anyway. its a really interesting idea though, im all for traveling the world with cheap accommodation.

Instant personality cloning? what's the world coming to? so now, along with our matching LV handbags, matching manolos, matching clothes, matching cars and homes, we'll have matching personalities? God save us! I hope we never get to a stage where we can clone looks, and all the women will look like angelina jolie and all the men will be brad pitt -- (which might not be such a bad thing).

East africa thankfully, is still somewhat like traveling back to the 80's. It still retains an old world charm, and life and work for most people is still relaxed, they take time out to enjoy life. people still close their shops at lunchtime for an afternoon siesta and you wont find most shops open after 5. The world and MTV are catching up though.. with the coming of "modernity" and "development", superficial-ity and greed are coming hand in hand. oh well, what can ya do?

As for the being 16 again, as Mark Twain says "age is an issue of mind over matter, if you dont mind, it doesnt matter."



The dude - Haha... im totally with you.. but i like to think im a tad more optimistic than that! I mean sure, life's a bitch, but so am I ;)

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