Uptown Again

It's been two fast weeks since I've left Gateway Gig, enough time to look back at the crap I had to do and breathe a sigh of relief that I'm not there anymore. It's been a while since I've written a law related post, so I figure why not pitch one out there.

I won't lie--CFC was a reason for leaving. But another significant reason was Morally Flexible Partner. The man is a disaster. He knows the short term strategy for surviving in a firm--get your associates to do all the work. Unlike associates whose value is measured by how many hours they billed, partners are generally measured by how much revenue they generate. Thus, it doesn't matter who bills, the partner or the associate, just so long as six figures a month keeps coming in. And the easiest way to do this if you take two hour "business" lunches and go home at five is to have the associates do all the work. Churn baby churn. This is probably why Morally Flexible Partner was in two firms in two years before landing at Gateway Gig. You get clocked as the lawyer who's not pulling his weight pretty quickly. He already has a reputation among a couple of partners as the guy who does jack shit.

But enough of the firm reasoning why Morally Flexible Partner won't last, and into the trenches. The man is a disaster organizationally and in the quality of his work. For a whole week after I left, I got one call a day asking me where shit was even though I had given MFP all the work or placed it on the server. He didn't recall whether he had filed shit that I had given to him to review. He would throw out stupid shit ideas ranging from harmless to get you sued on a weekly basis, and I ended up being the guy who told him that his ideas were shit. He had me doing secretarial shit. He was the hurry up and wait type of partner.

And now I don't have to deal with him, a feeling of blue skies and fluffy clouds.

You're So Cool

Oh my God, she throws movie quotes around like rag dolls. She's freakin' insane, but in a cute, adorable way. And I make her blush. Looks like I should plan a trip to the Bay Area soon.

Amber Headlights

And then you're reminded why you went off Lexapro. Putting in that album you've waited for, pressing play, hearing that drum and roundhouse rock n'funk guitar and that voice with the drunken swagger. And suddenly you're that guy in the dive bar, peanut shells crunching beneath your shitkickers. That beat, that guitar is making you a fuck monster, walking toward that not so sweet but oh so hot thang in the corner. And you get that feeling from thirty seconds of the first track. There's eight more tracks. Do you really want to give all this up?

Heartache versus inspiration. Not an easy battle.

"Get the wheel let's go for a ride,
If you're trouble then I'll follow you down."
-Twilight Singers, "Cigarettes"

"I got my hand on the wheel and another on my fire."
-Twilight Singers, "So Tight"

Maps

This non-thing with CFC has scarred me deeper than I thought. During the day, I still have thoughts about her every once in a while. That's to be expected. The Secretary blew me off, but I have Harmless Chick lined up. And if Harmless Chick doesn't work out, I'm just a random meeting away from a hookup. Upward and onward, right?

That animal part of the brain though, well, it's a bit tenacious. Last night, I dreamt I had to go back to Gateway Gig to pick up something. I saw CFC but she didn't see me at all. Then I thought how much I wanted to change things, but couldn't. I knew absolutely nothing at all would change the way I felt about her, and even worse, nothing at all would change the way she didn't feel about me. I left to go meet my pal the Big Jew at his gig, and NC was there. He saw me and gave me that shit-eating grin. I couldn't avoid the guy. I woke up pissed and not a little bit sad. It might be time to go back on the Lexapro.

In the meantime, I'm trying to get used to writing full time again. I did it before. Half a year of almost complete solitude. That's the toughest part. At two in the afternoon, most people can jaunt over to their co-workers office, shoot the shit. I have the commentary track of "Undeclared." But I chose to live this life for the next couple of month. The hanged man. A sacrifice for a better and brighter future.

Recovery

On my first day, I wrote about 1,600 in five hours. Over the weekend, I plotted out a work that will either be a novella or a screenplay. On my last day of work, my friend Rach said "I think this is a turning point. Better things will come your way."

Like moving in the three spatial dimensions, moving along time takes you farther away. Each second that passes is no different from a footstep toward the horizon. Eventually you'll look back, and you won't be able to see where you left. What will be ahead of you will be such a lovely warmth.

Honky's Ladder

Before I get into moving on mode, there's one loose end I have to tie up. I'm afraid for most of you, this will sound like some uncharacteristic scary shit, but it has to be said. Sorry to be cryptic, y'all, but this reader knows what I'm talking about. And if he hasn't been following this shit as it was going on, I know that he'll be peeking in sooner or later.

So here it goes. Yeah, you won. You got the last laugh, and I'm sure you were feeling so fine with your honey when I left on Wednesday. I saw that shit-eating grin in the lobby as I saw y'all going to lunch. You pulled that whole male dominant this is my girl "So, what're are you all doing" when I was having my last heart to heart Tuesday. Fuckin' aye man, you choose anyone more experienced, she'd clock you in five seconds for the insecure guy you are--and insecure does not play out well. But as I said, you have the last laugh for now. I was played, whether or not she intended to play me, and now you have that sweet thang all to yourself. Go ahead and write that in your blog. Feel free to link to this shit. But here's the thing.

I've got five years on you.

Here are some of the things I've learned the hard way in those five years. If you start out insecure in a relationship, your insecurity will not go away. Hell, it'll get even worse. She's young, intelligent, sweet. You pull that pissing to mark your territory move when I'm talking to her? Guess what, you will be having a lot of sleepness nights in your future.

And fuckin' about with a coworker? Not exactly a smart move. I know, you think you'll remain friends even if this doesn't work out. But three months from now, when you're totally sweatin' when she's out with her guy friends or out of town, and then she comes back and you see her everyday and it just gets to you, that uncertainty. I would say that's almost as bad as when she tells you she's seeing someone else, and then you have to walk past her everyday, knowing that she's not thinking of you. But the reality is that she won't tell you she's seeing someone else, because she doesn't want you to feel awkward, and when it comes out, it will feel like the ground has dropped from beneath your feet.

Yes, I am bitter about the situation, but not out of jealousy. If she wasn't into me, so be it. I can accept that. I'm friends with women who I've had feelings for, and women who've had feelings for me. I'm bitter because a yearlong friendship, the hours of talking and getting to know each other and laughing, that easy feeling when you know that someone gets you, disappeared almost overnight because of a two month relationship. I'm bitter because the last goodbye was simply a terse goodbye where she couldn't even bother to look at me. I know it was her choice, but I also know that you had a hand in it. You confirmed that with your dickwaving on Tuesday.

So you won. Enjoy the next month--it will be the best. Speaking from a guy who hasn't been exactly a good guy myself, these things play themselves out past that month. And that life you'll be living, let's just say you've read this blog and you know you better be praying to fate, chance and Lady Luck that this is the one time it will actually work out.

Now I'll get over it eventually, or if not, at least get some good writing out of it down the line. I'll be out away from the office, away from the bad drama, while you will be living some major bad mojo--it's not a matter of if, just a matter of when.

Recovery

Random snippet from conversation today:
"Hey, you never know Marty. Their relationship might end next week."
"Yeah, and monkeys may fly out of my ass next week, but you don't see me stocking up on banana chow."

Three of Wands

"Say you don't wanna be here,
Leave then-
Time comes , to get gone
Say good morning to another set
Of creature
My dear, I'm gone-she said-

You wanna go for a ride?
I got sixteen hours to burn
And i'm gonna stay up all night-"
-Twilight Singers, "Teenage Wristband"

"The months go by
And I don't think of you
The signal is frail
An imprint of what you do
So I turn up the sound And you are nowhere
I have learnt this
To my cost
But I maintain In the slow lane"
-Curve, "Recovery

"There is
Something exciting about leaving everything behind
There is something
Deep and pulling leaving everything behind
Something about having everthing
You think you'll ever need
Sitting in the seat next to you

And I watch

Another white dash
Another white dash
Another white dash
Fly beside us
And I watch
Another white dash
Another white dash
Another white dash Fly beneath us
Away away"
-Butterfly Boucher, "Another White Dash"

Deleted Scenes

Although the deleted scenes from "In the Mood for Love" are all beautifully shot and somewhat heartbreaking, I can see why Wong Kar-Wai left them out. The scenes either clarify the ambiguity in the movie, which isn't necessarily a good thing (maybe I'm a sap, but I'd rather that Mr. Chow and Mrs. Chan not consumate their desire), or provide a resolution in a movie that is all about how things left unresolved will damage you.

Even though I'm a sap when it comes to relationships in general, I've also learned enough to be pragmatic. Unfortunately, it's that gulf in experience between CFC and me that will prevent anything in the short run from happening. If my heart and soul is that of "In the Mood for Love," my mind is really the deleted scenes. So for shits and giggles, here's what would be cut out of Angry Yellow--The Third Season Finale:

1. Before my last heart to heart with CFC, I asked out another secretary. She works for a sole practitioner who rents out an office, so technically she's not part of the Scooby Gang. Don't get me wrong--I am heartbroken, but time still passes, my heart keeps beating, and life goes on. She gave me her e-mail address, so who knows what will happen.

2. I talked to CFC today to try to convince her in my best lawyer logic that we should at least stay friends. She's the monogomous dater type, and doesn't think it's fair to still be speaking to someone who she knows likes her while she's seeing someone else. She knows that NC wouldn't like it. I told her if I was some random guy who she met a month from now, NC wouldn't like that either. If their relationship truly isn't exclusive, then that's just part of the risk of dating. And I told her that we're all adults. I told her I asked out the sole practitioner's secretary, and she was shocked (yeah, Marty stuck his tongue in the fan again). The point I was trying to make is we both know that life still goes on, we both are seeing or will see other people, so why not still remain friends? Giving me "false hope" just isn't an issue, and thus to end a friendship based on a "leading me on" or that I'm a threat to the other guy is just bunk. Now she doesn't want to talk to me because she doesn't want to intrude on another woman--even though that other woman and I haven't even set up a date yet. Yeah, can you tell she's young? We've left it as she will think about just being friends.

3. In the middle of the above conversation, NC walked past. CFC and I were laughing about the fact that I had asked the sole practitioner's secretary out so quickly. So NC then did a second walkby, and said "So, what's happening here." That's the first thing the dude has said anything to me in the last two weeks. Insecure much, dude? Of course, he still has the last laugh because he's the one going out with her. But as the guy causing the insecurity, it sure felt good to put someone on the whole "I need to show my male dominance" offensive and to simply laugh it off.

Now don't get me wrong. CFC is only the second woman I've felt this way about. It does break my heart that she's choosing to end our friendship for a non-serious two month relationship. But I've learned the hard way that brooding does me no good. So there's another woman in the office with whom I have things in common and that I enjoy talking to. She may not return my e-mail next week, or we may go out and hit it off. Either way, I'm moving forward.

See, that type of insight you get through experience. Maybe if CFC were a little older, she would realize that getting rid of a friendship for sake of not pissing off a guy she's only been dating for two months may be a big mistake. He might meet someone at a bar a month from now and start getting serious with her--which will leave CFC still working in the same office, awkward, and without that yearlong friendship. She has my contact information if anything changes, but I won't be holding by breath. Given how quickly I asked out the sole practitioner's secretary, CFC certainly knows that.

There's Nothing For Me Here . . .

There's a scene in Wong Kar-Wai's "In the Mood for Love" where Tony Leung's character, Mr. Chow, confesses to his neighbor, Mrs. Chan played by Maggie Cheung, that he has fallen in love with her. However, Mr. Chow knows that Mrs. Chan will not leave her husband. So Mr. Chow says, "I'm leaving Hong Kong. There's nothing for me here. I know you won't leave him. So I'd rather leave."

Unlike most American movies where there is a happy resolution and the characters get what they want, neither Mr. Chow nor Mrs. Chan get what they want. "2046" shows the effects of Mr. Chow's heartbreak. He treats the one woman who genuinely loves him in the movie carelessly and recklessly. The woman who reminds him most of Mrs. Chan, he helps to move her to Japan with the one she truly loves. In the end, he's falling asleep in back of a taxi, alone.

You probably don't need me telling you what happened today with CFC. She decided to respect the relationship she's been in for two months, and have me walk out the door on Wednesday, out of her life.

I know there will be other women. Time will move on, and I'll think of CFC less and less. But CFC will be the other woman always in the room for a long time.

Teenage Wristband

I gave notice on Monday. My last day is August 31st, and instead of enjoying that carefree "I don't give a shit anymore"-ism, well, let's put it this way, Ryan Adam's cover of "Wonderwall" is still on repeat.

I've known Cute File Clerk for about a year now. Yes, she's only twenty-two. But she's incredibly well read (she was reading J.D. Salinger's "Franny and Zoe" when I first started talking to her). She's responsible (she called from her vacation in Cancun to get her time sheets done). She's funny and sweet and adorable. She can also be incredibly raunchy--when we talked about a Certain Someone, she would ask me questions that would make a sailor turn pale and steady himself against the wall. We would talk each day for anywhere between half an hour to a couple of hours.

The event that turned my thoughts from lazy observations of how cute she was to my heart melting whenever I saw her has to do with that South Park icon you see in the corner. We were working late one evening, and I had shown her a link to the South Park icon webpage as well as the icon I did of myself. CFC asked me to make her a South Park version of herself. When I did and printed it out, she shyly smiled and she asked me to sign it. I asked her if she was serious, and she stated that she was. After I signed it, she taped that printout to her cubicle so that it faced her whenever she went to do her filing. She still has the icon in her cubicle.

I know, that isn't exactly a Baz Luhrmann/Moulin Rouge type scene. And if it doesn't blow your socks off, I don't particularly care. It was her kindness that she asked for my signature, and that she ended up placing the printout where she could look at it everyday that got to me. I started thinking about the times I would have to call into the office while she was at reception, and when I said "Hey, this is Marty," she would reply "Hey, this is E*******" and giggle. I started thinking about our conversations. Or how the one time we went out for lunch in a group, she would try to crash into me while pretending to be drunk, or hang back to talk with me as we walked back to the office.

I did not act upon my feelings.

Instead, I joked with her, told her about Financial Advisor and my various non-adventures, and all in all acted the same way I did before. In the meantime, Newbie Clerk started working and became part of the Scooby Gang at work. And I began to notice that there were not as many shy smiles to me in the past two months, and that there was a change in behavior--extra eye contact, an extra flirtation--between CFC and NC.

So I made my second mistake (the first one being not quitting Gateway Gig when I realized I was just stagnating) and asked NC if he was seeing CFC because I didn't want to be a cockblocker. It came up last week because I had been mulling over quitting and told this to NC. NC said that he was seeing her, but would tell me if things changed. Hindsight being 20/20, I should've just told CFC that I was leaving and asked her out for drinks.

I'm an intense guy, which in this case meant my next action was intensely stupid as well. I then talked to CFC, and admitted how I felt. She grinned that shy grin, then covered her mouth with her hands like a Japanese schoolgirl and said, "No one has ever told me that before." We then ended up talking again for an hour and a half after work. She was telling me how sweet I was, and her eyes began tearing when I told her how I felt again. I admitted that I was jealous of NC, and CFC said I didn't have to be because NC and CFC were just hanging out with his friends, and that in fact I knew more than she did about how NC felt. I told her I might have to move up my timetable for giving notice, and she got really quiet and said "I don't want you to leave because of me." We had to stop talking because other folks were staying late and were starting to mill about the hallway.

The weekend passed, and I was hardly able to talk to CFC this week. CFC was incredibly busy, though the OCD chump that I am, I began to wonder whether CFC was blowing me off. I asked her if we were going to be able to talk before I left, and she said "We'll see." So I told her, "If this is your polite way of letting me know you don't want to talk about this, then I undestand and I'll drop it." She said, "No, I'm just hella busy. NC and I have been talking, and I definitely need to talk to you. We definitely need to talk."

I left CFC alone today, and went home early to prevent myself from doing more OCD things. That I saw CFC talking to NC this week, including this morning, doesn't give me much hope about what she could possibly say to me.

I have this vision of next Wednesday afternoon. As I leave, I'll say, "So, I'm leaving." And she'll say, "Bye." I'll say, "That's it?" And she'll say, "Yeah." And off I'll walk and that'll be the end of a years worth of shy smiles and conversation. Eventually, that printout with my signature will be thrown into the trash.

Look, I know I really got this FUBAR'd. I know I made a mistake by talking to NC, because when it's only about the women. Regardless of all the machismo shit guys say, when it comes to real relationships, women have the final say whether to initiate them or not. I made a mistake by not simply asking CFC out when I left, because all those deep feelings mean nothing if there's no potential at all for reciprocation. You throw all that intensity out there, the best you can hope for are some platitudes. I also am pissed that the one time that I followed the "Don't shit wear you eat" rule, fate fucks me over.

Some of my friends say that my vision is overly pessimistic--that I simply don't have enough information to know whether Wednesday will have me giddy, or downing a bottle of scotch by myself in a dark, hot room. After all, if I really meant nothing to her, she wouldn't say that she needed to talk to me. That doesn't guarantee that she'll say she wants to see me--she could care enough about me to feel that she owes me an answer, even if that answer is thanks but no thanks. But right now the only person with enough information is CFC.

However Wednesday turns out, my life after September 1st will necessarily have to be more stripped down, with less players and less drama. Beginning September, expect Angry Yellow--Unplugged.

I Said Maybe You're Gonna Be The One That Saves Me

You walked in just like smoke . . . 

A couple of weeks ago, a random friend-in-law read my palm at a martini bar. She was friendly, cute, but a bit overly locquacious for my tastes. She cupped the back of my hand with her long fingers, studied my palm for a few moments, and said, "You do not know what you want in a woman, which is why you will date around, never settling, you will not be faithful to any one woman."

My friends and I stifled a laugh at this. Out of my circle of friends, I'm the Johnny Straightarrow of relationships--perhaps not just a little naive, and a strong believer in putting 100% in whomever I'm with. I'm intense, which can be read as passionate if you're inclined to give me the benefit of the doubt, or which can be read as fucking unstable if you meet me at the wrong time. Put together, this means I will not be the one to stray in a relationship, because I will be devoting everything to the one who eventually lights the forest so I can find a place to stay.

Or at least, so I thought.

A real Johnny Straightarrow would not intentionally fuck about with a woman who he knows to be engaged, making love to her even as she has her ring on. A real Johnny Straightarrow would feel some guilt for breaking up a relationship, even if it were a relationship that had been rotting from the inside for three years. A real Johnny Straightarrow would not be pouring out his heart to someone he knows is seeing someone else, putting his friendship with her on the line and valuing his own feelings over anything and everything. So maybe my friends and I are wrong, still thinking I'm still that naive intense guy that I was ten years ago. I'm just a man--a fucked up, dirty, manipulative but at least honest man.

The talkative palm reader was dead right on one aspect--I don't know what I want in a woman. I'm almost thirty-three, and my only response to the question "What are you looking for in a woman" is "someone who adores me as much as I adore them." But honestly, I know that's a fucking copout. Unfortunately, it's the truth.

I can't say, "I'll know her when I meet her," because that's not true. I fell unknowingly for Certain Someone over the course of a year, and the latest situation over the course of six months. And Makeup Chick, though I had an intense reaction when I first saw her, would've probably burned out in a course of just a few weeks had things been different.

And all the standard shit people put down, honest, funny, nice--well, I've met honest, funny and nice women, and once they left my life, I've forgotten their names and faces. The standard shit I used to put down--quirky, artistic, creative--also come with unreliable, and psychotic attached.

My pals used to point out women and say, "Now there's a Marty-type woman for ya." Usually blonde, sometimes brunette, green or blue eyes, slender, petite, a cornfed Midwestern prettiness just a shade over plainness. But that's no longer true either. Certain Someone, Bee's Knees and Financial Advisor are all Asian. File Clerk is Mexican.

Sometimes it's liberating to realize the truth. Not this time though. When the arc of my desire for a nice, stable relationship hits the arc of the knowledge that I have no idea what I want, there's just this hole.

View this entry as "poor me-ism" if you want. That's fine. This is my blog after all, and it's here partly to be my de facto therapist. And in the meantime, I'm going to listen to Ryan Adam's cover of "Wonderwall" on repeat, both dreading and impatient for what will happen tomorrow.

Wake Up Everyday, That Would Be Start

Love is all a matter of timing . . .

"We all spend so much time not saying what we want, because we know we can't have it. And because it sounds ungracious, or ungrateful, or disloyal, or childish, or banal. Or because we're so desperate to pretend that things are OK, really, that confessing to ourselves they're not looks like a bad move. Go on say what you want. Maybe not out loud, if it's going to get you in trouble. 'I wish I never married him.' 'I wish she was still alive.' 'I wish I'd never have kids with her.' 'I wish I had a shitload of money.' ' I wish all the Albanians would go back to fucking Albania.' Whatever it is, say it to yourself. The truth will set you free. Either that or it'll get you a punch in the nose. Surviving in whatever life you're living means lying, and lying corrodes the soul, so take a break from the lies for just one minute."
--JJ in Nick Hornby's "A Long Way Down."

I wish I had read this three months ago.

All the Strange Things, They Come and Go

Water in your dreams in supposed to represent your subconscious, all those emotions that you have bottled up inside you. I guess my dream last night won't be that hard to interpret.

I was at the Santa Monica pier. In the waking world, I usually head to Santa Monica to relax--get some fish and chips, do some people watching, catch the breeze coming in from the ocean. And I was doing the same thing in my dream. I was at the edge of the pier, noticing that for some reason, a new post office branch had opened. Then I saw a larger that usual swell of water coming toward the beach. I thought how lucky the surfers were, how lucky I was to see such a large wave as it passed by the pier.

And then I looked out into the ocean again, and I saw a much larger swell. It wasn't so much a wave, but rather a sudden rise in the height of the ocean. I realized that it was a tsunami. I yelled to all those around me to get to higher ground. I climbed up to the roof of the post office on the pier, hoping that would be high enough. And the water came. Not crashing, but a sudden and rapid increase in the water. The ocean rose up to my feet and nearly knocked me down.

When the ocean receded, I realized this was but a lull and there was a larger wave coming. I scrambled down, running to my car in hopes that I could drive to higher land.

I plan on giving notice to GatewayGig on Monday.

Slipstream

My pal Dubois was right that I should've quit Gateway Gig earlier, and for more reasons than he knows. Not only have I delayed my writing for no good reason, I think I passed up on opportunity to move on conclusively and decisively from a Certain Someone.

The lesson to be learned is when your gut tells you to leave and your heart falls at the same time, maybe, just maybe you should fucking listen. You can avoid the realization that everything you feel, the certainty that things will fall in place, that heart skip feeling you felt as a kid jumping down a hill happening whenever you passed by, that secret warmth that you felt thinking about what would happen when you left, is weaker than a breath on a feather.

I'd like to think that my honesty has made a difference, but I know I'll hear the same platitudes all nice guys get. And whatever happens from here on out, I'll know that I should've listened to my heart six months ago.