Distance;
Whether a self imposed wall
Or a physical limitation,
It leads to a space where no one can push through.
Doubt. Fear. The crushing desire to run.
To, from. Towards, away.
It depends.
But in the end,
It is not the distance that grows or shrinks;
It is your attitude and your will.
Today was a normal day. Well, not really. I spent it with a friend, feeling safe and happy.
And then something happened. A phrase. A simple phrase took me to a place where I should not be.
I shrugged it off, but even now I can feel it nagging at me and pushing to the front of my mind.
Even now, my hands are shaking. I'm trying so hard to... not let it effect me. Or my actions, my words, my presence.
My friend, a man that would never do to me what my mind is nagging at, doesn't deserve to be attached to anything remotely close to that.
My fear, my topic and my thoughts are; will I ever be able to disassociate men with him?
Some say yes. Some say no.
I just tremble and try to hide it.
I'm sick of hiding.
I'm sick of distance.
Saturday, April 24, 2010
Friday, April 23, 2010
Abandon Ship
It's a unique experience to watch a company crumble from the inside, to watch it fall from the ground floor. I work at a retail outlet, one that seems to be on it's last days. Pretty much everyone can see it, economists, stock holders, customers, and even the Managers are now admitting the possibility of the inevitable. There only seems to be one group of people that don't see the company's end, the people running corprate.
From the inside I can see the death pangs all around me, the scrambling of executives to try and keep the business going. First came the changes to stock, the expense easiest to cut down on without any bad PR. Our shipments, once a regular occurrence at the beginning of the week, now come in several deliveries, most coming at the end of the week. Our supplies became limited, orders were not being filled, a long stretch of time passed where my store had no plastic bags for customers, my boss had to purchase generic bags from an office supply store out of his own pocket. When new bags did come, they were of the same make as the ones my Manager had purchased, and had no company logo.
The next on the chopping block was customer policy. Months we heard about this, a change to the store policy, but it never really came. With the coming of the zero hour, it happened, we were given only a weeks notice of it. The policy changed to one with the obvious intent to grab more revenue, worded in a way that made it sound beneficial to the customer. The simple problem with this whole change is that altering a policy when your customer base is steadily declining does not work, chasing away customers who do not like the new policy, while those who stay with the company not being enough to maintain the slight increase to revenue per customer.
Still bleeding money, there was one more place to turn, payroll. Stores began to shut down, and those who remained open began to see a cut in available hours. Employees went from an average of four shifts per week at twenty to thirty hours to two shifts a week at ten to fifteen hours. The company, attempting to entice their employees to stay with these massive cuts to hours and news of the company's impending collapse, gave out incentives. These incentives though, were lacking, no real benefit to an employee losing nearly half of their average paycheck now.
I sit back and I watch these steps play out, I watch as a company desperately tries to cut corners instead of improve business. I think about the people soon to be out of a job, I think of myself being out of a job. Mostly, though, I think about the men and women who run the business from up high, people who refused to evolve with time. These people who clung ignorantly to the old ways while technology made them obsolete. These people who saw their business floundering years ago and refused to update, who chose to try and cut costs instead of trying to draw in business. I get angry at these men and women, who are responsible for the welfare of thousands of employees who will soon be jobless. I get angry at these people who had the opportunity to pioneer the new wave of their business, but instead refused and allowed others to do it instead. Those others who soon became competition, and killed this company... But we handed them the gun through inaction.
When I first took this job I knew it was a dying industry, I gave the company five years before it would fall. After working a while I changed my prediction to three years, I've now been working there for two years, and it doesn't look like this business will last more than another year. I face once again the possibility for unemployment, right now it seems like a certainty, though I may be wrong. Who am I to assume the cost cutting won't work, that we'll retain the gross to pull ourselves out of debt, that this company will be able to stay on it's feet for a while longer?
If it does, I just hope someone in charge understands it's time to evolve.
From the inside I can see the death pangs all around me, the scrambling of executives to try and keep the business going. First came the changes to stock, the expense easiest to cut down on without any bad PR. Our shipments, once a regular occurrence at the beginning of the week, now come in several deliveries, most coming at the end of the week. Our supplies became limited, orders were not being filled, a long stretch of time passed where my store had no plastic bags for customers, my boss had to purchase generic bags from an office supply store out of his own pocket. When new bags did come, they were of the same make as the ones my Manager had purchased, and had no company logo.
The next on the chopping block was customer policy. Months we heard about this, a change to the store policy, but it never really came. With the coming of the zero hour, it happened, we were given only a weeks notice of it. The policy changed to one with the obvious intent to grab more revenue, worded in a way that made it sound beneficial to the customer. The simple problem with this whole change is that altering a policy when your customer base is steadily declining does not work, chasing away customers who do not like the new policy, while those who stay with the company not being enough to maintain the slight increase to revenue per customer.
Still bleeding money, there was one more place to turn, payroll. Stores began to shut down, and those who remained open began to see a cut in available hours. Employees went from an average of four shifts per week at twenty to thirty hours to two shifts a week at ten to fifteen hours. The company, attempting to entice their employees to stay with these massive cuts to hours and news of the company's impending collapse, gave out incentives. These incentives though, were lacking, no real benefit to an employee losing nearly half of their average paycheck now.
I sit back and I watch these steps play out, I watch as a company desperately tries to cut corners instead of improve business. I think about the people soon to be out of a job, I think of myself being out of a job. Mostly, though, I think about the men and women who run the business from up high, people who refused to evolve with time. These people who clung ignorantly to the old ways while technology made them obsolete. These people who saw their business floundering years ago and refused to update, who chose to try and cut costs instead of trying to draw in business. I get angry at these men and women, who are responsible for the welfare of thousands of employees who will soon be jobless. I get angry at these people who had the opportunity to pioneer the new wave of their business, but instead refused and allowed others to do it instead. Those others who soon became competition, and killed this company... But we handed them the gun through inaction.
When I first took this job I knew it was a dying industry, I gave the company five years before it would fall. After working a while I changed my prediction to three years, I've now been working there for two years, and it doesn't look like this business will last more than another year. I face once again the possibility for unemployment, right now it seems like a certainty, though I may be wrong. Who am I to assume the cost cutting won't work, that we'll retain the gross to pull ourselves out of debt, that this company will be able to stay on it's feet for a while longer?
If it does, I just hope someone in charge understands it's time to evolve.
Thursday, April 22, 2010
What Is Beauty?
Looking beyond the colored veil.
You can see the flicker, the shimmer.
The music is there, hiding.
It jumps, excited and overjoyed.
You need but open your mouth,
Open your soul, and let it free.
Looking beyond the awkward limbs,
You can see the graceful flow.
Movement and elegance,
Grow through the muscles,
Out the tips of your fingers and toes.
Close your eyes and dance.
Looking beyond the rustic tools,
See the painting as it can be.
Paint and paper can be so much more,
It is there, just reveal it as Michelangelo did;
Chip away at the marble until you find
The beauty of creativity in front of you.
What is beauty? Is it art, is it music, is it performance?
I can see beauty in most things if I look hard enough.
In the cliche things; music, a painting, a sunset, dance.
In the less admired things; people, books, speech, words.
In the things left behind; equations, mistakes, anger, a smile.
So again I ask, what is beauty?
You can see the flicker, the shimmer.
The music is there, hiding.
It jumps, excited and overjoyed.
You need but open your mouth,
Open your soul, and let it free.
Looking beyond the awkward limbs,
You can see the graceful flow.
Movement and elegance,
Grow through the muscles,
Out the tips of your fingers and toes.
Close your eyes and dance.
Looking beyond the rustic tools,
See the painting as it can be.
Paint and paper can be so much more,
It is there, just reveal it as Michelangelo did;
Chip away at the marble until you find
The beauty of creativity in front of you.
What is beauty? Is it art, is it music, is it performance?
I can see beauty in most things if I look hard enough.
In the cliche things; music, a painting, a sunset, dance.
In the less admired things; people, books, speech, words.
In the things left behind; equations, mistakes, anger, a smile.
So again I ask, what is beauty?
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
Equality
In 2008 Clay M. Greene lost a loved one. He lost his lover, his partner in life, his significant other. What makes this story of lost truly heartbreaking, is that the County Sonoma stole this person away from him. They stole his house, most of his belongings, and put him in a retirement home. Because of Sonoma, Harold had to die without his partner Clay by his side.
It started when Harold took a spill down the stairs in front of the couple's house. He was badly hurt, and needed to be taken to the hospital. The two men were not stupid, they had previous to all this made arrangements for just this occasion, with living wills, power of attorney, and medical directives each listing each other. Despite all this, Clay was refused the right to see Harold, nor was he consulted in anything regarding his health.
In the ongoing months the County would go on to petition to a judge for access to Harold's bank account to pay for his medical bills, listing Clay off as simply a roommate. After gaining limited access to the account, they would go on to auctioning off the items in the house, and selling the house back to the land lord. Harold died without Clay, and Clay was left without a home, possessions, or any reminder of his partner save a photo album Harold made while being treated.
Clay is now suing the county, and is likely to receive a lot of money with all the glaringly illegal actions the people of Sonoma made. But is there any amount of money that can make up for losing someone you loved, and not being able to be there due to no fault of your own? It's terrible what these people did, they flat out stole from two elderly men. Reading this story, it got me to wondering... Would all of this, this act of barbarism against these two men, would it have happened if they were married?
Now I'm not about to start ringing the discrimination and hate crime bell. The motives of the hospital are not known, and could very easily be driven by money and not anti-gay sentiment. The fact that Somona voted in a heavy majority against Prop 8 does show that this is not an issue with the area. What I'm talking about is simple equality, the question of if this could possibly happen if, like a man and a woman, these two men who loved each other could be legally defined as married.
A major argument against gay marriage, though more a justification than an actual argument, that gay men and women can gain any rights a married couple can, and there for already have equal rights. The problem with that is that a straight couple can simply make one action, marriage, and gain these rights, where a gay couple must jump through hoops on several legal procedures. More work to gain the same thing is not equal, and without a singular definition, as we can see in this case, can easily be ignored.
These two men, Harold and Clay, did the deeds. They jumped through the hoops, they did everything they could to make sure that their partner could be there and be the one in charge if the unforeseen were to come to be. Yet here it stands, their wishes, their legal rights, all undone with a simple ignorance to their will. These papers meant to equal the rights of a married couple were ignored, they were forgotten. Clay Greene was forced into a retirement home, with the hopes he would never be heard from again.
But what if they were able to be wed, were wed? What if there was a strict definition labeling these two as spouses, as family? Could the abuse these two men endured possible have happened? I find it infuriating that this happened when it could have so easily been avoided with a simple piece of paper.
The fact that these two men were not married does not make them any less to each other. The fact that they were not married does not mean they weren't family. The fact that they were not married does not mean they did not love each other as much as one can love an other. The fact that they were not married meant that the people paid to keep them well were able to rob them of everything they had, including the right to die together.
It started when Harold took a spill down the stairs in front of the couple's house. He was badly hurt, and needed to be taken to the hospital. The two men were not stupid, they had previous to all this made arrangements for just this occasion, with living wills, power of attorney, and medical directives each listing each other. Despite all this, Clay was refused the right to see Harold, nor was he consulted in anything regarding his health.
In the ongoing months the County would go on to petition to a judge for access to Harold's bank account to pay for his medical bills, listing Clay off as simply a roommate. After gaining limited access to the account, they would go on to auctioning off the items in the house, and selling the house back to the land lord. Harold died without Clay, and Clay was left without a home, possessions, or any reminder of his partner save a photo album Harold made while being treated.
Clay is now suing the county, and is likely to receive a lot of money with all the glaringly illegal actions the people of Sonoma made. But is there any amount of money that can make up for losing someone you loved, and not being able to be there due to no fault of your own? It's terrible what these people did, they flat out stole from two elderly men. Reading this story, it got me to wondering... Would all of this, this act of barbarism against these two men, would it have happened if they were married?
Now I'm not about to start ringing the discrimination and hate crime bell. The motives of the hospital are not known, and could very easily be driven by money and not anti-gay sentiment. The fact that Somona voted in a heavy majority against Prop 8 does show that this is not an issue with the area. What I'm talking about is simple equality, the question of if this could possibly happen if, like a man and a woman, these two men who loved each other could be legally defined as married.
A major argument against gay marriage, though more a justification than an actual argument, that gay men and women can gain any rights a married couple can, and there for already have equal rights. The problem with that is that a straight couple can simply make one action, marriage, and gain these rights, where a gay couple must jump through hoops on several legal procedures. More work to gain the same thing is not equal, and without a singular definition, as we can see in this case, can easily be ignored.
These two men, Harold and Clay, did the deeds. They jumped through the hoops, they did everything they could to make sure that their partner could be there and be the one in charge if the unforeseen were to come to be. Yet here it stands, their wishes, their legal rights, all undone with a simple ignorance to their will. These papers meant to equal the rights of a married couple were ignored, they were forgotten. Clay Greene was forced into a retirement home, with the hopes he would never be heard from again.
But what if they were able to be wed, were wed? What if there was a strict definition labeling these two as spouses, as family? Could the abuse these two men endured possible have happened? I find it infuriating that this happened when it could have so easily been avoided with a simple piece of paper.
The fact that these two men were not married does not make them any less to each other. The fact that they were not married does not mean they weren't family. The fact that they were not married does not mean they did not love each other as much as one can love an other. The fact that they were not married meant that the people paid to keep them well were able to rob them of everything they had, including the right to die together.
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
The Poet
The poet drew the line in the sand;
Connecting it to another.
She knew where it began
But not where it was to end.
And so she followed the line,
Searching for the other.
She went through heat,
Through snow and weather violent.
The end never seemed to come,
Her dimming hopes having enough.
With feet so tired, eyes so weary,
How could the gentle poet go on?
So she sank; in spirit, in body,
Her knees hitting sand so rough.
Head falling, hanging in defeat;
And in her despair, the poet missed the gleam.
Connecting it to another.
She knew where it began
But not where it was to end.
And so she followed the line,
Searching for the other.
She went through heat,
Through snow and weather violent.
The end never seemed to come,
Her dimming hopes having enough.
With feet so tired, eyes so weary,
How could the gentle poet go on?
So she sank; in spirit, in body,
Her knees hitting sand so rough.
Head falling, hanging in defeat;
And in her despair, the poet missed the gleam.
Monday, April 19, 2010
Bad Day
Sometimes things just don't work out right. You get up, everything seems fine, you go about your day without any worries, without any problems, and then suddenly it hits you. It comes from nowhere, that first chip in the armor, that first crack before the inevitable break. You may not even see it as bad at first, it's small, inconsequential. Then it starts to grow, a snowball rolling down hill it swells exponentially. More and more pile on, each action leading to a worse consequence, it's overwhelming, it all started out so simply...
I find myself today in a very off mood, which is only compounded by the fact that the day started so well. But then I got a text message from a co-worker, asking for me to cover a shift. Now this in itself wasn't a problem, a simple no would take care of the problem I figured. I had a lot of small chores to handle, a couple movies that needed to be returned today, and I was unwashed and generally feeling at ease and relaxed. Today was not a day for work.
But then the texts continued to come, my co-worker, with no ill intent I could detect continued to pry, asking me why I wouldn't take the shift. Each time I felt my mood dip, my general attitude shift from content to annoyed. He may have had some good points, but the discussion of the virtue of being lazy vs making money was not something I was looking for. I had given him my answer, and each stab at my reasoning just brought me lower and lower.
It soured me, I still feel the general malaise of sullen dullness. I want now to just curl up and forget the day, sit back and do something mindless. I want to vent myself of the weighty emotions, they do nothing for me. Those chores I was supposed to do now seem distant in my mind. I don't want to get a shower, don't want to do laundry, don't want to sit and write. I just want to be... sullen. Be dark, be moody. I want to just stare at the world with a heavy brow. I want to hide away in the darkness of my mind.
These feelings, these emotions, this tainted day. I know they'll all pass, sooner than I imagine I will be uplifted again, feeling lighter, a weight off my mind. Nothing dragging me to the floor anymore, I'll be me again. But for now I just stew in my own soured state of being. I lay around and gruff at things that would normally make me happy. I become a beast that has been awoken, slowly stomping about till I can once again slumber.
All in all, I'm just having a bad day.
I find myself today in a very off mood, which is only compounded by the fact that the day started so well. But then I got a text message from a co-worker, asking for me to cover a shift. Now this in itself wasn't a problem, a simple no would take care of the problem I figured. I had a lot of small chores to handle, a couple movies that needed to be returned today, and I was unwashed and generally feeling at ease and relaxed. Today was not a day for work.
But then the texts continued to come, my co-worker, with no ill intent I could detect continued to pry, asking me why I wouldn't take the shift. Each time I felt my mood dip, my general attitude shift from content to annoyed. He may have had some good points, but the discussion of the virtue of being lazy vs making money was not something I was looking for. I had given him my answer, and each stab at my reasoning just brought me lower and lower.
It soured me, I still feel the general malaise of sullen dullness. I want now to just curl up and forget the day, sit back and do something mindless. I want to vent myself of the weighty emotions, they do nothing for me. Those chores I was supposed to do now seem distant in my mind. I don't want to get a shower, don't want to do laundry, don't want to sit and write. I just want to be... sullen. Be dark, be moody. I want to just stare at the world with a heavy brow. I want to hide away in the darkness of my mind.
These feelings, these emotions, this tainted day. I know they'll all pass, sooner than I imagine I will be uplifted again, feeling lighter, a weight off my mind. Nothing dragging me to the floor anymore, I'll be me again. But for now I just stew in my own soured state of being. I lay around and gruff at things that would normally make me happy. I become a beast that has been awoken, slowly stomping about till I can once again slumber.
All in all, I'm just having a bad day.
Sunday, April 18, 2010
Sex: A Reply, A Metaphor and A Ramble
So, Will... It's come time for a reply.
Sex.... What is it? Is it daunting? Is it... beautiful? Is it necessary?
A question I often ask myself, just to see where I am in life, is "Is the relationship making the sex or is the sex making the relationship?"
While it doesn't always need to be taken strictly in those terms (A more open translation being "Is the cake making the icing or is the icing making the cake?"), it helps me realize what is going on around. What is
And for me... Sex is just that. Icing. I don't NEED it. In fact, without cake, I get sick of icing really fast. But on the flip side.... Cake can get a bit boring without icing from time to time, right?
Well maybe you just haven't gotten the kind of cake you need.
Ok, Manda... I get it. You need a balance, right?
Wrong.
Some people can sit down and eat a whole damn tub of icing, fuck the cake. Who needs cake when you've got sugary, amazing icing in front of you?
Some people can sit and eat a cake as is. No extra toppings. They don't need the outside sugar, just what's inside. Who needs icing when you've got moist, delicious cake?
.....And some people get stomach aches from all the sugar. And some peoples' mouths get dry after too much cake.
What is the point of all this obvious, semi-metaphorical rambling, Will?
It's this: Everyone's taste is different. No one is wrong. No one is right. Not when it comes to this basic act. If you leave out all the moral and ethical problems introduced later by humans and their ever-loving need to make things complicated, that's what you get. Variety. The spice of life. The difference between each and every one of us. My brain patterns, just as unique as fingerprints and retinal scans, revealing my thoughts being different from her, her, him and you.
So maybe not everyone wants the icing and maybe not everyone's a fan of cake.
Who cares? You have your body. I have mine. They have theirs.
So, in the end, does it matter; their view?
It doesn't to me. But then... I'm still mixing my batter.
Sex.... What is it? Is it daunting? Is it... beautiful? Is it necessary?
A question I often ask myself, just to see where I am in life, is "Is the relationship making the sex or is the sex making the relationship?"
While it doesn't always need to be taken strictly in those terms (A more open translation being "Is the cake making the icing or is the icing making the cake?"), it helps me realize what is going on around. What is
And for me... Sex is just that. Icing. I don't NEED it. In fact, without cake, I get sick of icing really fast. But on the flip side.... Cake can get a bit boring without icing from time to time, right?
Well maybe you just haven't gotten the kind of cake you need.
Ok, Manda... I get it. You need a balance, right?
Wrong.
Some people can sit down and eat a whole damn tub of icing, fuck the cake. Who needs cake when you've got sugary, amazing icing in front of you?
Some people can sit and eat a cake as is. No extra toppings. They don't need the outside sugar, just what's inside. Who needs icing when you've got moist, delicious cake?
.....And some people get stomach aches from all the sugar. And some peoples' mouths get dry after too much cake.
What is the point of all this obvious, semi-metaphorical rambling, Will?
It's this: Everyone's taste is different. No one is wrong. No one is right. Not when it comes to this basic act. If you leave out all the moral and ethical problems introduced later by humans and their ever-loving need to make things complicated, that's what you get. Variety. The spice of life. The difference between each and every one of us. My brain patterns, just as unique as fingerprints and retinal scans, revealing my thoughts being different from her, her, him and you.
So maybe not everyone wants the icing and maybe not everyone's a fan of cake.
Who cares? You have your body. I have mine. They have theirs.
So, in the end, does it matter; their view?
It doesn't to me. But then... I'm still mixing my batter.
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