misAdventures of Workmonkey 3.0

At some point, about nine months ago, my glasses were attacked by a baby grizzly bear. I'm not sure where this grizzly bear came from, as I was in Brooklyn at the time it happened, but I do know that one night I put down my glasses for a night of sleep, and when I awoke the next morning, my glasses had deep, inch-long gashes in both lenses (It isn't inconceivable my glasses had been attacked by Abaddon, King of the Locusts, a demon I regularly do battle with during my frequent nightmares ..).

As you can imagine, when your lenses have scratches over the entire surface, it severely impairs your vision. Everyone appears like that dude in Edvard Munch's "The Scream" . A single light bulb becomes a pyschadelic glitter ball of disco proportions. I had to watch television with my head cocked at a 29-degree angle, to see through the single undamaged area of the lens (hold your "cocked" jokes to yourself, please). The only thing keeping me from buying new glasses? I was freelancing, and thus did not have vision insurance.

Well, that recently changed, and so last Saturday, I found myself at Cohen's Fashion Optical on Montague in Brooklyn Heights. I wasn't exactly sure what my insurance covered, but I had signed up for the deluxe version, so I knew I had the best. In the past, I've been seduced into purchasing the high-end Italian frames, things like Gucci and Prada (which, incidentally, break just as easy as the Roger Rabbit frames i had as a child). This time, I was dilligent, and picked out a pair of "Legre", which sounds Italian, but was half the price of the others. I think Legre is actually an Albanian swimwear manufacturer, but no matter.

With the frames in hand, I ordered the lenses. I got all the anti's: The anti-reflective, anti-scratch, anti-gravity, all of that. I proudly gave her my vision insurance info, and stood back with a smile.

She rung up the total: $423.80.

Upon my request for explanation, she produced a card detailing my insurance coverage. 20% off of frames over $120. Co-pays for all the anti's. No coverage for high-index lenses. No coverage included after a one time payment for contact lenses.

In other words, my vision insurance was totally useless. I would have virtually paid the same without it. And my dental insurance? Didn't help me when I needed to get two cavities filled two weeks ago. I owed $110 for that. It just about beats what I pay for dental insurance in the first place. After seeing Jill's $300 dollar bill for a minor trip to the hospital, I'm not planning on testing my medical insurance any time soon if I can help it.

So of course I was not suprised in the least when I read today that State Farm Insurance is refusing to pay any home insurance claims made immediately after Hurricane Katrina. Apparantly, State Farm is only required to honor their insurance policies when insured houses are destroyed from disasters involving wind, not wind and water. And Hurricane Katrina ruined houses using both wind AND water, so they have no obligations. Thankfully, the courts decided State Farm is totally full of shit.

I think the point is clear. Insurance companies are 100% liable for being full of total shit. They make decisions consulting their spreadsheets before their consciences. Maybe a world without insurance companies would be better, seeing as all they really do is take your money without actually being legally obligated to do what you were paying them for: help in a time of need.

The good news is I can now see clearly again. My insurance company didn't have much to do with it, but at least I can watch TV with a cock in my head, er, I mean, with my head cocked.

Editor's Note: In response to the complaint that my blogs are too long, I've decided to make them longer. My job sucks, I do nothing all day but "cell" phones (get it? cell/sell? that's my job in a nutshell), so this blog is all i have left. At least I'm not writing lengthy, detailed reviews of digital cameras and fish lenses like that asian dude with a blog on this site.

One of the most pressing challenges in the months after moving in with a girlfriend is finding the proper time to spend on your internet pornography hobby. When living alone, one can enjoy a romp in the internet bed anytime one cared to. The laptop was always present, inviting you to peak into the bedroom window of Carla or Brittany, or Carla and Brittany, as they enjoyed each other's lovely feminine talents. Now, however, there are certain discretions I must take -- namely, not to visit tight-teens.com while my girlfriend watches the Golden Globes. So, it follows, I took advantage this past Saturday when Jillian was called into the office unexpectedly, leaving me alone in an apartment that just happened to have an internet connection.

A quick note about our new apartment: It faces directly across from a 150 year-old Catholic church, named St. Charles. The two large bay windows are consumed by this church, which hovers over the apartment like an angry priest shaking his sausage-like fingers and berating me for a lifetime of sin. It is certainly not the image I care to have staring upon me as I venture into the ever-present world of sin, populated by lesbians, big tits, and deep throat blow jobs. Something about seeing a woman take a hot load on her face and sun-filled stained glass windows simply doesn't mix.

To combat this problem, I approached the windows and drew our thick, mustard-brown curtains to a close. God may be able to see all, but the clergy of St. Charles certainly didn't have to. I was just getting settled, and had paid a visit to my favorite site (URL available upon request), the beginnings of intercourse playing across my screen, when I heard the thick, skull-rattling sound of heavy bells. I had forgotten that twice a day -- at noon and 6 P.M. -- St. Charles rings their bells for several minutes, apparently to remind everyone within earshot that they are evil sinners. I could block out the site of the church with curtains. But how was I to block out the sound of bells? I quickly realized, just as with images, the sound of a woman moaning "fuck my ass" isn't a nice accompaniment to Catholic church bells. It is was as if God was intentionally trying to make a point to me. Upon reflection, it was the most telling, cumulative religious experience I've had in years. Never at one moment had the polarities of my life played out in such a poetically symbolic sensory experience. One one hand, we had the ultimate sin - sex, pornography, lust, and really, really large tits with even bigger areolas. On the other hand, we had untainted purity - a 150 year-old church, holy bells, the 12 stations of the cross, and a very-prone-to-religious-guilt 31 year-old remedial Catholic.

For better or for worse, there was no chance of me continuing to appreciate the internet porn sites I was desiring to visit. Watching a MILF double-pump her co-workers on hot-secretaries.com was falling short now, as the memories of an innocent youth conflicted with the realities of a corrupted adulthood. I've spent the bulk of my adulthood trying to incorporate the need for pornography with the need for religion. But the time had come to see if I could join them as one. There was only one solution: Put down the laptop and head to my first Catholic mass in over three years.

The simultaneously amazing and disheartening virtue of Catholic church is its total lack of change. Walking through the thick oak doors of St. Charles, I found myself comforted that everything seemed just as I had remembered. The empty pews, the high percentage of elderly people, the high arching ceilings, the organ, the crucifix. Seating myself behind the youngest person I could find, I found myself feeling self-conscious, as if everyone in church knew I hadn't been in years. As if everyone knew I had just been looking at porn. As if Jesus was going to climb off the large cross above the altar, and slap me with his thick wooden hands. I also felt like an amateur, despite the fact I was once an altar-boy (the Catholic version of a cabana-boy), and had attended a Catholic University. Had everything changed? Would I be exposed?

No, nothing has changed. Mass is the same. The smells are the same. Even the words are the same. You have to give it to the Catholic church - they've been able to keep true to what they think works for centuries. It isn't the best policy for attracting young new talent, but at least it's consistent.

As the mass progressed, I recognized an amazing transformation had taken place: I wasn't feeling any guilt. Attending mass in the past was a feeding frenzy for my guilty thoughts. I sat there for an hour, memories of sins shooting throughout my skull like lottery balls. I swore too much, masturbated too much, drank too much, didn't give enough money to charity, didn't pray enough, wasn't thankful enough. Now, however, I was comfortable, enjoying the mass, appreciating the lack of acerbic logic and fanatical devotion to logic that dominates life in the outside world. The feeling of comfort and something higher I have craved since I stopped going to church. I was sold on St. Charles.

As I walked out of mass, and shook hands with the priest with the same hand that would soon be typing in a sinful URL, I finally came to peace with two divergent elements of my past: church and sex. Ultimately, I have realized they can both fit in your life, albeit, I'd recommend not at the same time.

Last night I finally got around to watching the 4-hour season premiere of 24. I haven't watched a full season since season one, which was incredible. Since then, a lack of Tivo and inconsistent living situation prevented me from watching any others seasons. But as I am domesticated now (jill has placed a GPS locator under my skin, and makes me wear a bit and bridle), I have all the time in the world to watch another season. So I last night I sat down, poured myself a very strong glass of Chardonnay, and pressed play.

I was about half-way through, when Jill pointed out that I had yelled at the screen almost 18 times already: "No way they'd blow up a house in LA without first confirming the terrorist was actually in there" ... "How did this 24 year-old black dude get elected president" ... "Impossible that enemy combatant can hide on the bus without anyone finding him" ... Upon Jill pointing this out, I became mortified, as a long-lost memory flooded into my mind. A memory that sent me into a terror: have I become that "practical" movie watcher that I used to despise when younger? The guy who points out all the things "unrealistic" about a show that is totally based upon an unrealistic premise to begin with? Am I such a cynical, negative asshole I can't even watch a fictitious, prime-time TV show without pointing out what's wrong?

The memory is from a cool summer night in high school, a few months before we all left for college. A number of us were at a friend's house watching one of my favorite all-time movies, Red Dawn. For those of you who don't remember, Red Dawn was made during the height of the Cold War, and starred such young talents as Patrick Swayze, Jennifer Grey and Charlie Sheen. The premise was great: Soviet and Cuban forces invade the US, starting WWIII. After their Colorado high school is invaded and classmates shot, some teenage students, calling themselves the "Wolverines", escape into the mountains and begin a guerilla campaign againt the evil invaders. These seven students completely confound the Russian forces and singlehandedly defend America, all to background of very patriotic music. In other words, it is totally and completely improbable. But if you don't get a tear in your eye when you watch it, you don't have a soul.

I want to be clear: Red Dawn is intensely enjoyable and entertaining, but unrealistic - that's what made it so great. It was a fantasy, the same daydream every American high school student had during the Cold War. I often imagined that I could singlehandedly defeat the Russian army with my ninja moves and super smart brain if ever given the chance. When I watched the movie, I suspended disbelief to revel in the joy of seeing a bunch of high school students kick Russian ass.

Ok. Back to the memory. There were about six of us scattered around the TV. And one of them, Matt, who played the role of the way-too-serious tight-ass that exists in every group of friends, insisted on pointing out EVERYTHING that was unrealistic in Red Dawn. Every minute was something different: "No way an Abrams M-1 Tank would lose its tracks from a direct hit by a Russian RPG" ... "Ok, that's simply absurd. Everyone knows a MiG fighter plane cannot climb at that rate of ascent. The Tomcat would have his ass" ... "All the Russians have to do here is use their 3-RR heat-sinking radar navigator to find these kids .. I could find them in five minutes, with the right equipment."

It was non-stop. It ruined the movie. Sure, his comments were "technically" correct. Perhaps those kids would've been found in five minutes. Perhaps that tank wouldn't have exploded like that in real life. But fuck! That's the point! That's why the movie was so good! It showed a fantasy, something that would never happen in the real world, cause the real world simply isn't interesting enough to want to watch. I remember getting so pissed that night, thinking i'd never be that guy.

Well, last night I was. And I have been for awhile. I've forgotten why I watch shows and movies - for simple entertainment. By judging and criticizing every inaccurate aspect of the shows and movies, I've corrupted my ability to appreciate the pleasing fantasy that a group of high school kids could defeat the Russian army.

And I finally know why I'm corrupted. Back in high school, I had a lot of fantasies, some of which I thought might come true. Then, as I grew older, and dream after dream was crushed by the heavy heel of reality, I becamse cynical and pessimistic ans a form of self-protection. As a result, I became instantly angry when seeing something other than the depressing truth of reality on the screen, and need to call it out.

No more. As of now, I once again believe seven high school kids named the Wolverines can defeat an entire army. I believe an RPG can destroy an M-1 Abrams Tank. And I believe that Patrick Swayze can lead a rag-tag team of patriotic Americans into the greatest victory in military history. If you don't believe that, no problem, just keep your mouth shut when you're around me.

Late last night, I awoke to the distressing sound that has haunted our apartment at least once a night for the past two weeks. It was the sound of a man moaning in pain, both physical and mental, for minutes on end. It came from the apartment above us, and is not the type of sound you want to wake up to. When we first heard it about two weeks ago, my first thought was someone was vomitting after a particularly harsh night out drinking (think the sounds I made after the 12 tequila shots I consumed at the Acapulco restaurant in Santa Clara, when Hector, Slaven, and I got in our first, and last, drinking contest). It had that same guttural, uncontrollable waterfall of air heard when a poison is being furiously denied by the stomach. But after awhile, it became more of a moan, as if a ghost from a "Scooby Doo" episode was clumsily trying to scare us from outside our dark bedroom window. The moan was tinged with a hint of sadness, and expressed the type of pain that I don't think i've ever felt before.

Jill wanted to call the ambulance - she thought someone was dying. I demurred. If someone was indeed sick, perhaps with cancer, the last thing that person needed was the police knocking on their door in the middle of the night as a reminder to their awful situation. Or even worse, I thought, what if this guy was some pervert getting his balls stomped on by a mistress he hired every night? I wanted no part of that (well, maybe just a little), so the sound continued. Each morning, I resolved to talk to my landlord about it, but upon arriving at work, the stresses of a common day (surfing ESPN, eating lunch, writing blogs) soon overcame any thoughts I had about the night before.

This past Friday night was particularly ghastly. The moans went unabatted for several minutes on four different occasions, and sounded more like cries than they had in the past. The moans were followed by the sound of furniture crashing on the floor above us. I woke up on Saturday determined to figure out what the hell was going on. I didn't need to walk any further than my own door to get the answer.

As I walked out my door that morning, an elegant, well-dressed, older man passed me on his way down the carpeted stairs. He stopped half-way, paused, and began walking back up towards me. He smiled and introduced himself as Rudy. Rudy has lived on the fifth-floor (two floors above me) for over ten years. He politely asked if I've been hearing the sounds coming from the apartment directly above mine. I nodded. Rudy apologized, and proceeded to tell me the following story:

The man above us, in apartment 4R, has lived in our building for twenty-five years. He is a fifty-seven years-old diabetic. Sometime in the past few months he decided he wanted to start killing himself. He shut off his phone, bought a bunch of alcohol, and is basically drinking himself to death, exactly like Nicolas Cage in "Leaving Las Vegas". As a diabetic, Rudy explained, the sound we are hearing is his body totally reject all the alcohol. We are also hearing the sound of a man with an intolerable amount of mental anguish. Once a successful professional, he now has no family, no friends, and lives with his mother's ashes. Rudy, having lived in the building long enough to know the guy, says he has been to his apartment twice to offer help. In the apartment are piles empty liquor bottles scattered everywhere. When drunk, the man breaks his furniture, which is the crashing I hear at night. The apartment is a total wreck, as is the man. People in the apartment have twice called the paramedics, when the moans have become overwhelming. They come and take the man away, and a week later, he leaves rehab, comes back, and starts drinking again, and tells those in the apartment to mind their own fucking business. His mind is slowly giving away, Rudy says, and there is a good chance he will be dead soon, as the man's body has literally reached critical mass. Rudy wanted me to be aware of this, as we live directly below him. What could I do, I asked? Just keep an open ear, he responded. Any attempts to confront or help this man have concluded with an abusive, angry tirade from the man. He doesn't want help, and, in his own words, "just wants to be left the fuck alone."

Well, that shouldn't be a problem. I was never planning on going up there to preach to him the virtues of healthy living. Besides, if I went up there, and saw all that alcohol, there's a good chance i'd stay awhile, then emerge drunk a few days later telling everyone "that guy is actually pretty cool, you all just need to relax." In reality, I'm not sure I am equipped to handle a man that has that much pain. If a man wants to drink himself to death, I guess he has the right to do it.

I thanked Rudy for the information, gave this necessary somberness over the situation, and went out to get lunch. Later that night, while watching TV with a glass of scotch, I heard the man begin his moans. I went still for a moment, before being overwhelmed by a sense of huge relief: All my life, I've always thought I knew what real pain was. But it is now very clear to me that I do not. And, as his cries filtered through my open window, I was never more relieved to be me, and not anyone else.

Living in Brooklyn, I now have to regularly ride the subway to and from work. It is reason #1753 I enjoy New York over Sunnyvale. In Sunnyvale, I had no choice but to drive to work. Driving to work entails traffic, buying gas, flipping off other drivers, finding parking, and getting parking tickets after you park illegally because you got pissed off when you couldn't find parking. On the other hand, the biggest challenge riding the subway is figuring out what you want to read on the way. I've already knocked out about five books since the move, and countless New Yorkers. The problem is that the new book I'm currently reading is a thick hardback, which makes it impractical to carry on the subway. I never buy or read hardbacks, for the very reason they are hardbacks: They are hard to read, and hurt my back. And they are usually expensive. However, the hardbook i'm reading now was a gift, and thus i've made an exception. But because i'm unable to travel with it, as it is a lot of pages and very heavy, because i'm smarter than you and only read books with lots of pages that are very heavy, i've had to find a new daily companion. For the sake of finances, i've chosen the New York Post. It only costs a quarter, and is in a book layout, making it easy to read. The issue is that reading the NY Post makes you look stupid, as it is about a step above the National Enquirer as far as journalistic quality and integrity is concerned. Half the paper is dedicated to celebrity sightings in New York's restaurants. I'm uncomfortable with this, as my image is of extreme importance to me, particularly on a subway. My first instinct was to switch to the NY Times, but that brought about two problems. Firstly, the NY Times is a dollar, which puts it just beyond my reach. Secondly, and this is a problem I've had with regular newspapers since I was a kid, how the fuck are you supposed to read a regular-sized newspaper? There is nothing I hate more than being into a story on the front page, and then having to turn to C12 to finish the story, particularly on a subway. And holding something that big in a confined space like a subway is nearly impossible, especially since half the time you are standing and have to use one arm to hold on to a nearby pole (subway pole, not a man's throbbing erection, just to clarify). Am I alone on this? Why aren't all newspapers shaped like the NY Post .. or better yet, a magazine? Why are they still shaped like they were when the lead story was about the military loss at Alamo? In any event, this is why I don't read the NY Times, or even the USA Today. To recap this dilemma which you all certainly find disconcerting: I prefer the NY Post, but it makes me look stupid. The NY Times makes me look successful, but I can't hold it (apparantly successful people know how to hold newspapers better than the losers). As such, i've devised two possible solutions.

One option is to print out a masking cover to the NY Post. Something to put over it to make it look like a different paper (this is the vinatge Playboy scene in bad movies .. A boy at the library actually has a Playboy within the library book it looks like he is studying.) I could print out a cover page for a fictional newspaper, say, The Economist Genius Edition. Once designed, I could place this cover to hide the cover of the NY Post, and look smart. That takes a lot of work, and a printing press, so I'm guessing I won't get to that anytime soon. My second option is to carry around a copy of Albert Camus' "The Plague", that I let hang out of my jacket pocket just enough for everyone to notice it. I'll slip the NY Post inside my jacket, and let it fall when nobody is looking. That way, it looks like I am picking up a random copy that was just laying on the ground. Then, when I flip through it, I will snicker a lot, in that way smart people snicker when they are reading something well beneath them. I will pretend I am just taking a moment to flip through the literature of the heathens .. Just to see what is going on in their world. Towards the end of my ride, I will throw the Post back on the floor, shake my head in disgust at the unintelligent filth I just read, and pull out my Camus. When I reach my stop, I'll make a quick comment, like "Oh, Camus, how I hate to put you down, but I must!" and walk off the train.

Problem solved.

And yes, these really are the things I think about during an average day.

I'm on the verge of completing another senseless day at work, where i've managed to read twelve separate features on espn.com, clean my email inbox, sell an intrusive banner ad for Cingular, and compare stats between all NBA point guards. Also, in the process of my extensive web surfing and instant messaging, I've learned the following:

* You should never say "on accident." It is always "by accident," or, preferrably, "accidentally," as in, "I accidentally pissed away another work day," instead of "I pissed away another work day by accident."

* Dragonhair doesn't have the balls to move to New York. His biggest concerns are that we don't have a "Spoons" out there he can hang out at, and a lack of people interested in SLR fish lens conversations.

* I am fully incapable being constructive during a work day in which I have no tasks to accomplish. The most useful thing I contributed to the planet this blog, and that is saying something.

* The Chinese fought the Indians in 1962, in a war called the Sino-Indian war, over the border of Tibet, which had never been established. It was the highest war ever fought, in terms of elevation. I'm also guessing it had the best food of any war ever.

* Speaking of Chinese food, I don't like shark fin soup. Had it at three different weddings. Why the hell do the Chinese take the oddest part of an animal, and claim it as a delicacy? Everytime I eat shark fin soup, I feel that gives a shark a free bite on a human leg.

* I'm officially done in my quest to find satisfaction in a career. I'm going back to my thinking in the dot.com. Make money, get home as early as you can, and start drinking with Kenta.

The only thing missing is Kenta.

Shit.

I've just returned to my desk with lunch: The 6-inch ham and turkey on wheat from Subway. I originally went to Subway to get a 6-inch turkey on wheat, which costs$3.97. I changed my order to a 6-inch turkey AND HAM on wheat when I realized that sandwich cost only $3.78. Perhaps some of my more financially-minded readers could help explain to me the economics behind this. You add a meat, and the sandwich decreases in price? That'd be like if a cheeseburger was 3 dollars, while a double cheeseburger was 2 dollars. And what stops me from buying the turkey and ham for 20 cents less, and then just removing the ham, so I can have a turkey sandwich? This sort of shrewd thinking is why I now have 20 more cents in my pocket than I otherwise would have. Calculations have revealed to me that in five years I could conceivably earn 365 extra dollars with this scheme. In 15 years I can have enough for that flat screen i've had my eye on. However much I enjoy saving money, I still cannot explain the sense of lowering the price of a sandwich as you add elements to it. But don't question what you don't understand, i've been told. Just save the 20 cents, get older, and spend away.