A betrayal of trust July 13, 2012

   

Friday the thirteenth.

Didn’t we just have one of these? Maybe we bring about our own back luck, like I did last week when I emailed her to ask if my coming to the main office to work regularly would upset her.

This was not a completely honest gesture, but one designed to put a wedge between her and her chief supporter in the main office, a man who I still believe lied to me when it came to his relationship with her.

This was also a total betrayal of trust between me and him since I was well aware he wanted to keep our conversations about her between us.

But I also wanted the truth out there, to have us all aware of each other in this game of secrets, and perhaps shed some light on the trickling up she’s been doing, not just with our former temporary boss but with the owner on the third floor from whom she expects to get a raise.

In some ways all of this is predictable, a pattern of behavior that started long before she set foot in our office and will likely continue on long after she leaves.

I don’t like the idea of being a stepping stone for her.

I know she doesn’t like what I post on my poetry site, and I know that posting the poem “Union City” last week was pushing things a little too far.

She made it clear what our boundaries are when she forced me to take down the photograph she sent me of her hanging from her roof top,

In truth, I believe she has tried to keep things professional in the office – with a few lapses, for which our former temporary boss might have scolded her.

He seems to have become her primary advisor, though I’m not certain exactly how much he knew about me and her prior to my talk with him in the park.

These days I believe he is fully apprised. Which is another reason I sent the email to her, to make it clear that he is capable of keeping secrets from her as he is from me, telling her in that one brief message that he’s just like the rest of us.

It was a rotten thing to do, a scheme I came up with on the spur of the moment, followed up by an email to him to let him know what I had done.

Since he has not responded to any email sent concerning her, I was not concerned when I received no immediate reply.

When they reply came, it came via telephone, coming from both of them, my phone going crazy with their calls.

 

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How to succeed at meditation without really trying. June 25, 2012

   

Her post today isn’t really a poem, but something of a light-hearted observation about how difficult it is to live “in the moment.”

Despite her previous references to this state of perpetual “now,” in truth, she clearly has the same issue most do when confronting the concept. How exactly do you maintain that moment without falling off the edge into the past or future, and how exhausting an effort it is, “Thinking about thinking,” when a moment should be allowed to flow effortlessly from one moment to another.

Too much focus ruins the whole concept of “letting go<’ and you wind up dissecting the moment rather than experiencing it.

This idea that we must live in the moment and not worry about the past or speculate about the future is easier said than done.

How do you live up this idea when the mind seems to have a will of its own and goes off where it wants?

It becomes a big a struggle to corral random thoughts than to deal with the hamster wheel thinking in the first place.

Ultimately it becomes an exercise in futility.

If you have to work so hard to stay in the moment, if all your will is bent on where your thoughts go, you are not living in the moment at all, but rather being obsessed trying to.

In the end of this poem, she throws up her hands and get ready to go back to work.

 

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The Giving Point June 18, 2012

   

There are two over arching schools of literary criticism that incorporate either internal or external material when evaluating a work of art.

Those who follow the external school, almost anything goes, meaning that a work can be evaluated by factors beyond the boundaries of the work itself to include the artist’s biographical data, looking for aspects of that artist’s life that may have influenced the creative process.

Purists, however, believe an evaluation must include only those elements contained within the framework of the art itself. If something isn’t in poem, for instance, it shouldn’t be used, unless there is some allusion inside the work from which an inference can be made to something beyond.

Most criticism is hardly one or the other and generally even the so-called purists sometimes draw on biographical and other materials if they can build a strong enough case for them.

In dealing with her poems to this point, I’ve bended to use a purist approach, keeping things out of my evaluating her poems that I might know happened to be transpiring in her life, focusing instead on what she appears to be trying to convey in the poems rather than explaining her motivations.

With the poem she posted today, I need to deviate from that methodology, partly because there are several overpowering external influences that clearly influence the creation of the poem, one influence less significant than the other, the other which might be seen as a macro vision of her life as a whole.

She seems to be evaluating her struggle, her successes and failures over time, how she seems to return to the same spot where she must start again.

But in her view as expressed in the poem, each time she has to start over – at that point where the whole thing might fall apart permanently – she seems to start at a spot slightly more advanced than the last time she had reached that plateau, suggesting that if she continues to struggle, continues to work her way through the maddening pattern of climb and fall, she will eventually reach a point where she attains what she is seeking.

Yes, she reaches a point at which she started but just a bit beyond.

Each of her efforts seem to be structure the same. She begins a cycle as a novice, and then at some point her ambition kicks in and she sees herself as having earned her wings, only in each case, it all comes crashing down on her, leaving her pretty much clinging to the place she started, on the precipice of total collapse, but don’t quite, and so she starts all over, the claw to the top at some new chosen profession with the hope this will lead her beyond.

The poem calls this “the giving point” at which things could go either way, down or slightly up.

She, of course, is writing this poem at a point in the current cycle where she thinks she has moved beyond novice. She just met with the owner to ask for a raise and may even have made big plans for what she might do to ascend to the next level.

The poem’s language use suggested a great struggle in her “creeping” passed the giving point and defying gravity that has the potential to bring her down.

She seems well aware of the potential for failure.

Unfortunately, some of the factors have changed and the poem seems to reflect this.

We have seen a change of leadership at a critical point in her rise, from a mentoring temporary boss to a harsh task master in the regular boss returning from maternity leave. The land scape poses more risks.

Leaving out the internal office politics that might better explain our boss’ need to put her in her place, the poem leaves open the question of how far she has actually come and raises the specter of continued struggling as well as the risk gravity might still pull her down after all.

In some ways, she seems to be retelling the myth of Sisyphus, who faced punishment by being forced to push a boulder up a hill only to have it roll back down once he got it near the top. Her poem seems to seek a way out of that dilemma, offering herself a molecule of hope that she has advanced towards the top if only slightly.

If this is indeed an allusion to Sisyphus, you want to wonder what she thinks she is being punished for, why the Gods or fate denies her what she believes she deserves to achieve.

And as with all mythological gods faced with the prospect of eternal torment, she is desperate to find some sign of progress no matter how meager that will provide her with some sign of eventual redemption.

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Ripped open July 11, 2012

    

I knew exactly what I was going when I sent her the email last Friday morning, not so much declaring open war with her, but with the man she had taken on as mentor and whom I felt betrayed by after I had poured out my heart and soul about her to him.

I still feel he lied to me about his involvement with her after I had completely confessed everything to him about everything that had gone on between me and her.

I guess I expected camaraderie rather than deception, a kind of mutual understanding, when all he seemed to do was run for cover.

I still don’t know for sure. But his circumstances and mine were so similar and his reaction so overwhelming secretive, the whole thing felt wrong, and it nagged at me ever since our meeting in the park.

Maybe his interest is only about helping for shape a young talent as he claims.

But he was not the same person he had been during his first tour as our temporary boss as he was the most recent tour, and this may or may not been a result of her.

Much of the positive sense he’d had during his first tour had turned bitter during his second. While we remained close, two men against a clearly corrupt management, he became even more secretive and distant after I spilled my guts to him in the park.

I don’t know for a fact that he is one of the select people she invites up to Cloud 9; I only suspect is and suspect he won’t share his confidence with me as I had mine.

I am not privy to those private texts between she and him and can only speculate that they may be similar to those she exchanged with me.

Maybe down deep I’m a bit jealous, too, having been cast out of Eden, and resent those who still have the privilege to remaining there.

I got the feeling none of us – me, him or our male owner – are supposed to know about each other in regard to her.

I hated the secrecy; I wanted the whole thing exposed so that all involved could see just all who were involved.

Tom’s comments in Liberty State Park last week still haunt me, and I wonder if there is any truth to what he said. Are members of the cabala using her to get inside our company?

All the secrecy bothers me, his, hers as well as the usual office politics that has left me out of the loop and exiled in the Annex even though back in February before all this came up, I had requested to come north again.

I was denied. Another got the slot instead.

I raised the question again in the park with him and how safe it was considering the climate with her. Since he was no longer in a position to deny me, he suggested I be careful and make sure I act completely professional if I managed convince the owners to let me make the move.

The email to her said as much, how he thought it would be safe for me to come north provided I kept my distance.

But I knew this carried another more lethal message, telling her he and I had talked about her.

I knew this even as I hit the send button, knew I had betrayed him to her, and only regretted it after it was too late to take it back.

 

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A friendly warning July 3, 2012

  

 

I met Tom today during my stroll through Liberty State Park.

He’s an operative for the county (some say) political machine, and when he saw me, he pulled me aside, telling me we had to talk.

He said he’d heard rumors about the company I worked for and wanted to know if they were true.

We get this a lot, partly because we are the only regular media in a lot of small towns, especially up county which largely falls in a waste land between the local daily and the big cheese daily in Bergen County.

Tom said rumors claimed we’ve been taken over by a political cabala from one of the northern County towns.

I told him the male owner of our newspaper was too inept to get taken over by a political organization.

“My boss has the political instincts of a pet rock,” I told Tom.

While our company frequently took sides in elections, it almost always depended on which side had the bigger bank roll. For the most part, the male owner almost always picked the losing side.

He was the kind of man who tended to trust the worst kind of scallywag, the unreliable, untrustworthy sort who hooked his nose and led him down a garden path away from any kind of political credibility. Yet somehow, our owner still believed he had his fingers on the political pulse.

If there is a self-promoting, totally corrupt political operative chances are our owner considered him close friend, whose word he took on faith for everything.

But as for a political cabala from a small town, even our owner might not fall for anything like that.

“Anyone with a big enough check book can have anything they want from our company,” I told Tom.

But Tom was serious. Unlike the owner of my company, his political instincts were finely tuned, and when he said he believes something true, it generally was.

The cabala, he meant, came from one of the upper county towns that had recently elected a maverick mayor in one of the biggest political upsets in recent history.

This dirty dozen had come from far and wide to latch onto a virgin mayor they saw the goose who could lay them some golden eggs. Tom had mobster names for them such as “Joey D.” They had very little in common with each other except for their greed and they belief they could bleed the administration for contracts over the next four years – only realizing too late what a boob the mayor was.

Although a political maverick, the good mayor had almost nothing to do with his own victory. He was the end result of a much larger county-wide political war that pitted the county machine against the might of four very powerful political figures: U.S. Senator, a state senator, a congressman (a former popular mayor in that same town) and a neighboring mayor along the waterfront.

Within months of being sworn in, the maverick mayor had managed to offend all of these allies and to get himself arrested on campaign charges to boot, leaving those power brokers quietly looking to somehow replace him. But this only entrenched the cabala of snakes, who hoped to hold on long enough to squeeze out of him and the town enough to justify their having come there in the first place.

I told Tom such plots were beyond my pay grade, but added my doubts about the validity of such an attempt to take over our company since – as big a buffoon as our owner was, he would not see any profit in, since most of the cash still resided in the county political organization to which he had sold his sold long ago.

“I’m not talking about your owner, at least not yet” Tom said. “I’m talking about the girl you’ve got working up there. She’s romantically involved with one of that crew.”

This talk made my extremely uncomfortable and I told Tom I didn’t know anything about that either.

Always a political opportunist, Tom said he intended to broker his information with the Maverick mayor’s former political allies.

“I’m sure they’ll find the information valuable,” Tom said. “I just wanted to warn you, so you don’t get caught in the cross fire.”

I thanked him. But secretly I suspected I already was.

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Time has a life of its own June 14, 2012

 There is probably more going on in this nugget of a poem than I can see, perhaps the marking of some anniversary to which I am not privy or if connected me only marginally.

The poem alludes something in its title that had become a kind of mantra during our early interactions – especially when I suggested things could not possibly work out between us.

On its surface, the poem seems to explain as to why she needs to live her life, moment to moment.

In some ways, this is a sister poem to the one she posted three days ago with the combined sense of inability to control something and with a certain fatalistic sense of not to try.

The poem personifies time and the image she uses strongly resembles those old-fashioned cartoons where the shadow detaches itself from its host to take on a life of its own. In this case, the day rushes ahead of its master no matter what the master does to hold it back.

Meditating or else, the day just won’t come back to whom it belongs, and suddenly, it’s a year, not just a day that has passed (maybe lost forever).

The speaker in the poem sounds resigned to this after having wasted time and energy in a fruitless attempt to keep control of time.

But there is no tone of panic, merely resigned acceptance of the inevitable.

The poem seems to say that time has a will of its own, and the only way to deal with it is to live in the moment, to not make big plans for later that may still be unfulfilled a year later.

You can waste your life trying to pin it down, but as well-worn words of wisdom clearly indicate no matter how desperately you try go to control the little devil, it will do what it wants anyway.

Time as a will of its own.

And the poem seems to be an acceptance of that face, and a in apparent attempt to reminder it is up to her to live her life moment to moment, not project ahead to what she hopes will happen.

She can only control what happens in that particular moment and perhaps not even that.

 

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Coworkers or what? July 5, 2012

  

I had a good excuse not to show up at the main office; I chose not to use it.

I refuse to surrender public spaces just because I’ve ceased being one of the select few picked to access more private ones.

I have the feeling of war being waged one I hadn’t wanted to wage in the first place but could not afford to lose.

This was only partly personal; rumblings outside the paper spoke of a cabala of wanna-be power brokers in one of the northern towns, rumors claiming they had an “in” they might be able to exploit.

I kept thinking of the somewhat mysterious “RR” who had become an important source for a number of our stories about what went on there. What I found out about him did not bring me comfort.

Inside our organization, I saw a similar power play, moving pieces in corner office politics I had no part of yet somehow had gotten dragged into, our boss out of maternity (in the guise of some concerned resident) sending cryptic email and other messages criticizing the performance of her temporary replacement as if to make sure she still had a place to roost when her maternity leave expired.

Everybody has turf to protect on all three floors while the real power emanated from two primary sources, the male and female owners, each ruling over everything like a king and queen.

Not conscious of this before, I came to realize you needed to be close to one or the other to have any status – and with the female owner out due to her own illnesses, this meant the male owner ruled largely without challenge.

The closer you get to him, the more potential power you have.

Since I don’t like him, and don’t trust him, this leaves me with only my own bare knuckles and a determination to keep my grip on what I have, even if I have is worth very little.

Our former temporary boss – necessary for that brief moment when our regular boss was out – has even less power than I do, and perhaps why he clings to his personal relationship with her as one of the few benefits of being here. When in charge of meetings, he spent a great deal of time praising her past work and her work ethic. During his time filling in for the regular boss, he had gone from acting ruthlessly towards her to becoming an unabashed fan, calling her “one of the two best writers on the paper.” Yet, I could not get out of my mind, our talk in the park and how careful he needed to be to make sure she did not know the two of us had met or talked about her. For someone with nothing to be ashamed of, he seemed to have something to hide.

She looked great at the meeting. After four or five days in the sun over the long 4th of July weekend, she had a deep tan and no longer had the dour look of previous weeks. She even felt benevolent enough to pause and ask how I had screwed up my leg, indicating she had not read by blog over the last weeks where I had detailed by fall in the parking lot of a local supermarket and the harrowing rush to one of the local hospitals by ambulance.

I got a bit of this cabala stuff when I interviewed the up-and-coming political opponent to the mayor of the northern town, who claimed there had been political firings. I took this second part to her since it was her town. She called the mayor and then told me those people were leaving the city’s employ on their own, not being fired. I offered to turn my interview over to her. She refused with just a bit of hostility.

I modified my column to reflect her mayor’s version and sent her a copy of the corrected text, along with a footnote once again apologizing for having hurt her in any way.

She responded. “We’re co-workers. Forget it.”

 

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More about yesterday. June 29, 2012

 I can’t make out what went on at the main office. I tried to ignore her. But it almost seems as if she can’t stand people ignoring her, even me, at least, in person.

When I first came in, nobody was around. She apparently arrived while I was seated at my desk and was at the other end of the building hobnobbing with Jay and the other sales people. She seems to feel comfortable with them and may even be at the bar tonight where Jay will be playing bartender.

I had planned to show up there with my wife after the movie, just to show I’m not afraid to be out and about in public.

I left the office for coffee when I saw the owner come in and saw her on the curb talking to the owner. I said hello to him, but not to her.

Later, I went up to the third floor to talk to our former temporary boss. I didn’t notice her reaction because I kept my back to her the whole time – although our former temporary boss kept looking past me and at her, perhaps in some visual means of communication I didn’t catch the meaning of.

Since she has told him all about her stalker from New York, I wondered if she has also confided in him about her trouble with me.

Still later, when I talked to the receptionist, I also kept my back to her, heard her snort and then stomp on passed me, indignantly.

On Thursday, when she was struggling to get copy before she left on an extended weekend, I sent her a press release dealing with one of her towns via email. She responded back, “thanks,” even though later I found out she had also received the information. So, I’m assuming the “thanks” was being sarcastic or is it something else?

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Consumed with passion? June 6, 2012

 Her poem posted on June 6 continued a theme that made me extremely uncomfortable.

Perhaps because it has a grain of truth.

In this poem, she uses a very familiar metaphor of food. At first glance, a reader knowing her might mistake the subject as part of her eating disorder. But after close reading it clearly is not.

It is about obsession, and while it could be directed at her New York stalker, it seems more likely targeting me.

Paraphrased, the poem suggests something, or someone seems better when you desire it, and that desire is fulfilled. But there are people who are not satisfied with just that, and want much more, going behind reasonable and into the realm of perverse, hyping up the thing into something it never was and never could be, mangling what had been something pure into something ugly, a deluded lust that eventually destroys itself, as well as the object of his affections.

I use the word “he” and “she”, but the poem does not, using “one” and “it” instead, thus avoiding making this poem seem like merely a personal attack, when it is something much, much more.

He blames her for the loss, but it was his arrogance that destroyed it (love, lust, affection whatever.)

He is unable to distinguish between his obsessive desire for what was innocent and without fault and maintains a perverted version of that lust inside his head that is “criminal” and obsessed with getting “more and more” which really cannot exist. In the end, he destroys what might have been possible.

This is one of her longer poems and it displays her brilliance at being able to maintain an extended metaphor, relating all of the elements to food to make a powerful and painful point.

Food tastes better, some people say, when you’re hungry. But some people starve themselves in anticipation of even greater pleasure.

Food here could stand for love, or lust, sex or even companionship, but serves as a symbol for something more significant, power maybe, control perhaps.

The villain is greedy, seeking a greater kick, so what once might have been pure becomes perverse. Whereas he could have enjoyed simple pleasure, he ruins it by seeking something more, “forcing gross want in its place.”

This is kind of saying “You could have had something good, but you pushed it all too far” and in fact, he is seeking something he’s fooled himself into thinking he wants. And then, he resorts to “violent pretense.” Something that consumes him and the object of his affections.

She claims he is so out of touch with reality (nature) that even his own body rejects it and when he can’t get what he wants he gets angry, and the destruction comes from what she calls “misplaced vengeance.”

He blames her even though it is “wrapped up in his own arrogance,” and is consumed with destroying it, including himself.

He can no longer distinguish himself and the delusion of want he has created. And he keeps escalating to the point where he can no longer distinguish between innocence and the “criminal path” he is on.

At this point, she broadens the scope of the poem to make an even larger judgement about his character, and his obsession over something that could have been purse, but has been tainted his obsession, killed off by a “societal, disturbed perverse incline” which seeks to destroy something that could have existed, as a opposed to his fancy, inevitably destroying good with the bad.

As with some of her previous poems, this poem is an indictment, accusing him of destroying a good thing with his obsessed need to turn it into something else, something that could not possibly exist except in his convoluted brain, and he’s blaming her for its dying.

The food metaphor is nearly flawless, because it reflects the concept of consumption, gluttony that is easily transferable to lust, love or any other passion.

Although she does not use pronouns like “he” or “she”, she does create characters defined as good or evil.

By the use of words like “greed” and phrases like “forcing gross want,” the poem sets up the contrast between “he” and the more innocent “she” and what she has to offer in phrases like “savoring the privileged taste,” “humble honest need,” or later, “the original thing gently desired without fault.”

The use of “privileged” harkens back to a previous poem when she talks about the privileged few she invited to her apartment.

He comes off as “arrogant” and “criminal” with “misplaced vengeance,” seeking to destroy” the sense of balance. He is engaged in “violent pretense” and “consumes unmercifully.”

She seems to paint him as an aggressor who wants more than the innocent relationship she offered, some twisted vision in his head it is impossible to give him even had she wanted to. And when he can’t get it, he blames her and destroys what might have been possible in the first place.

It is his own lust that is responsible for the demise, and he wants something that cannot possibly exist except in his own perverse thinking.

 

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Won’t fade away June 28, 2012

 Life doesn’t get much stranger than it has over the last few days, starting with my water heater exploding.

On Tuesday, I spent just enough time in the main office to suffer through a meeting in which it became clear she was did not intend to talk to me or even look at me, perhaps noticing me noticing the intense flirting going on between her and the owner at the top of the table.

The usual office gossips reported on party for the magazine like fashion reporters, claiming she dressed up, making my decision not attend all the wiser.

If she can put on a show at the meeting, how much worse might it have been in her own environment, when she clearly knows how much it bothers me?

She has the routine down to a fine science.

Our once temporary boss said she asked the owner for a raise about four weeks ago. He doesn’t think she got it from what she’s said to him.

I suspect she did, which would explain the good relations between her and the owner.

In leaving the main office early, I managed to avoid any possible conflicts with the owner, who seems not particularly happy with me lately and I’m not sure it’s on account of her or not.

But I feel so out of touch with the rest of the company, an exile at the annex, which may well be her intent. I went to the main office yesterday just to prove I could and to collect information that somehow, I miss when I’m not there.

Bosses and petty bosses seem to like keeping information to themselves, even when it is vital for doing our job.

I refuse to face away just because she might want me to. I refuse to cease to exist. While I will never go into a bar where she is, I have every right to come and go in the office.

Although it was odd when I came out of the office and found she and the owner conversing on the street. They stopped when they saw me, and the owner scurried back inside as if he had something to hide.

I went for coffee and did my best to ignore her the rest of the day, although more than once, she stopped near my desk – perhaps trying to listen in on my phone conversations.

Or she may simply have been showing her frustration as mine being there.

 

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The permanence of impermanence June 11, 2012

 

In a poem posted five days after her previous one, she performs a bit of poetic gymnastics, shifting from a tone of almost moral indignation in the poem posted earlier to one of seemingly extreme personal introspection in the poem posted today.

Along with her ability to master use of language, this shift in tone and an always changing approach to each poem makes her such a powerful and intimidating poet, a delight to read even when I am the subject of her admonishment.

This poem is far less about me than about the pattern of relationships she’s had with those she had touched and who have touched her.

This then raises what appears to be one of the central dilemmas of her life, although with one significant exception, this poem as in other poems avoids the use of pronouns that make it utterly personal.

She questions the patterns of her life (if indeed the poem actor and the poet can be assumed as the same person which is always a risky thing).

If something happens again and again, does it become “a routine,” even though this defies the common definition of what routine is. Most would define routine as the usual order of doing things, the way things are normally done as in a job, or if in a relationship – the expectations of that relationship: people meet, get personal, and then get attached.

In this poem, however, she takes up a secondary meaning that creates the central paradox of the poem: an unvarying and constantly repeated pattern of actions, done almost mechanically, a habit of behavior she has fallen into over time, almost parting in its repetition. Yet more importantly in the deeper irony of her “flitting”  in and out of other people’s lives, defies the routine what other people might expect such as permanence and a long-term relationship in what she calls “a chaos and unpredictability of days,” a routine of impermanence, each day having her dive into the unknown, and raising an even more fundamental question:  Is her not committing to anyone remaining true to herself.

Only in this last question do we get the definitive “I”, almost rebellious and defiant in his placement in the closing portion of the poem, yet without being argumentative.

It is difficult to tell at whom she is directing this poem. But it is clearly not just a poem written for herself either, unless as a response to the questions those early morning voices raise that drag her out of bed before five, and perhaps to others who have asked, why she hasn’t settled down with some good man or woman.

She is perhaps asking herself the same questions they ask, how she can go from touching and being touched with the possibility of permanence, acknowledging that there the potential for real comfort in a long-term relationship.

The poem uses a structure she has used before, a kind of call and response, in which the first portion of the poem establishes the basic question, and the second half seeks to come up with a response.

This is echoed in her language use where we get iconic words representing well-known routine such as “census,” “permanence” and “long-term” in the opening passage, while the concluding portions use more ironic language such as ‘chaos,” “unpredictability,” and brilliantly, “unscheduled schedule,” to eventually reach her daily dive into the unknown.

There is no regret here.

In fact, there is something attractive in all this, an “On the Road” kind of Beat perspective we might get some a writer like Kerouac, telling us that this is her life and that she has come to terms with it, and anyone reacting to her, should accept this as her life, too.

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Is this a thaw? June 30, 2012

 She was not at the bar when we got there last night. Almost nobody was.

Jay, however, gave me a rundown at what happened at the magazine party last week. Jay brought his new girlfriend and our owner got enamored with her, grilling Jay for more and more information about her.

I had just come from seeing “Rock of Ages,” which made me feel uncomfortable, and suggested just how out of touch I am (perhaps always have been) with the known universe.

I got the same feeling when I saw the off off Broadway play about ordinary housewives who start a garage band and make it big, the song “You can’t fuck them all,” sending chills through me.

I was in a better mood after the movie than when I went in but felt nervous about going to see Jay at the bar knowing it was possible, she might be there.

I guess I’m not as courageous as I let on to be.

I was more than a little relieved to find she wasn’t there after all.

I got a mild shock when I got home to find she had responded to an email with another press release I had sent late in the day, after she had left for the weekend.

Since she claims she didn’t have access to work emails at home, I suspect she must be with someone at the paper who does – maybe even the owner or possibly our former temporary boss since two Mondays ago, she took a rare sick day while he was also off on vacation.

Her email response said she was off and would not be able to cover the event but said I could cover it if I chose.

I emailed her back saying I would check with our recently returned from maternity leave boss to inform her I would cover it if I could.

I suppose I am presuming too much to think this might be a thaw in the chilly hostilities and we might once more get back to being simple work mates, returning to our professional relationship after the personal one went up in flames.

 

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All or nothing June 5, 2012

   

Her poem posted today has a simple but significant message. The closer you get to something, the more there is to learn.

While standing away from something, you might get overwhelmed by the larger picture and learn almost nothing about it.

The poem is about two kinds of knowledge.

The first kind of knowledge comes from being close to a subject and getting acquainted with all of the subtle aspects of its personality. So, the more you learn the more you realize there is so much more still to learn.

The second kind of knowledge comes at a distance, where you might see a larger picture, but aren’t privy to the essential details. The big picture often overwhelms you, and you tend to make judgements based on this confusion that may not be valid, based on impressions rather than intimate knowledge, judgements that are often false.

It is bad to assume things when you do not have access to important inner details.

The poem is told in third person narrative but has no internal character. The poet or speaker is talking to an audience, to another person, trying to make an important observation.

The poet calls this a “paradox” which is something that at first glance seems contradictory, but after closer study proves to be true.

In this case, she is saying when you get close to someone, you find out a lot, especially that there is more to learn.

On the outside at a distance, you learn little, assume a lot, making judgements without really understanding the subject or person.

The poet is essentially telling someone not to make assumptions based on lack of real information and shows you the benefit of getting close to a person where the real truth lies.

The form of the poem is based on two parallel stanzas.

The first stanza talks about the inner aspect, the second stanza about the outer.

The first talks in terms of greater discovery, “more and more.”

The second, “less and less.”

She uses positive language in the first stanza, “more and more,” and “reveal,” while the second stanza uses negative language “less and less,” “and obsess.”

The closer you get in a journey of discovery (possibly joy) the more aspects of character are revealed and with the promise there will be more to be found in the future.

The further away, you discover less, get confused, and made assumptions based on things you might see in the very large picture. You get obsessed with details that a more intimate knowledge might have revealed as inaccurate.

What she seems to be saying is: if you are kind, patient and willing to invest in her, you might learn a lot and get well-rewarded, that she has a lot to offer and that there are various aspects of her character yet to be revealed.

If you are impatient and get obsessed, you essentially wind up with nothing.

`

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A talk in the park June 29, 2012

I went to him, our former temporary boss, because I thought he was in the same boat I was since she apparently had trickled up to the owner.

I didn’t realize how wrong I was until I actually got to talk with him and found he not only didn’t know about the owner, but was still so hooked on her, my talking about her scared the living shit out of him.

I asked if we could go for a beer after work so I could confide in him. He suggested coffee in the park, leading me to suspect he might suspect the subject of the conversation.

Yet, he made no attempt to hide our going off together even though she had a window on that side of the building – that came later, that came after he heard what I had to say, and he went into a panic suggesting we should not be seen together.

We carried our coffee into a small pocket park where we settled onto a bench, as mothers with baby carriages paraded around us.

I told him my tale from the beginning, occasionally getting confused about the timing, and with a certain panic. He interrupted only to get clarification and when I was done told me she had also confided in him, but flatly denied my assumption he had been involved with her romantically.

Still, he looked nervous and kept looking back over his shoulder towards our office building not at all visible from where we sat, more as if he expected her to pop out from between the hedges and catch us at our talk.

He said she had told him about her stalker, and how he had insisted that she supply a photo of him to keep in the office computer bank in case something happened.

“He looked like a wimp to me,” he said. “I told her to report him to the police.

She had said she had although I’m not sure she actually had.

During those times when I was with her, her texting notification frequently sounded, sometimes she claimed it was her stalker, other times she didn’t explain.

When we were still talking, she asked questions about our temporary boss, how old he was and such. She had read his book.

“He’s really fucked up when it comes to women,” she’d said.

During the talk in the park, he said he was aware of just how wounded she was and said he felt her intensity each time she walked into a room.

I was aware of this, too, although it seemed more sexual than wounded, as if she was an actress constantly performing, flirting with men, getting their attention, well aware of each man’s vulnerability, reaching us each in a different way.

For our former temporary boss, her vulnerability worked well as did her family history and its connection to the mob.

She had spoken briefly to me about her family’s history, but when it was clear I had little interest in it, she seemed to drop it. For him, it was like catnip. He couldn’t get enough.

She said her father had rebelled against the mob ties before his death when she had just turned 8, and how she struggled after that.

Our former temporary boss concluded she had spent the rest of her life trying to compensate, seeking a man to replace her father in her life.

The only problem is her father isn’t dead. If fact, he helps support her because the job pays her so little, something she resented, but tried to make up for by occasionally playing bartender as some of his functions.

When I pointed this out to our former temporary boss, he told me I was wrong.

Later after a little research, I found her father’s email and address and sent them to him, and email he never acknowledged.

Before we went back to the office, he advised me to cease posting poems on my blog, even if they are not related to her.

“She will read them all as if they are,” he said. “And keep communications at the office as cool as possible.”

This last is easy since she’s not speaking to me anyway.

At this point, he said we should take another way back to the office, out of view from where she might see us out the window, and that we should enter the building separately.

Why all this stealth if we have nothing to hide?

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A bottle of wine (restored) June 22, 2012

I suppose I should explain more clearly about the bottle of wine.

Yes, I put it on her desk as a peace offering, but only in response to an email she sent me at some point previously saying she needed a drink.

I emailed her back saying considering all that’s happened between us, meeting for a drink would be a bad idea. I said I’d leave her something instead.

I didn’t anticipate the suspicious looks I might get walking into the office with the bottle, especially from both receptionists, frowning not only at my appearance in the main office on any other day but Tuesday, but also at the bottle I clutched in my hands.

I told them it was an apology then rushed past them, put in on her desk, and left.

These hot and cold mixed messages makes me think that maybe she likes keeping me on edge, perhaps a not so subtle punishment for the bar thing and my posting of photos.

Mary Jane, my oldest and dearest friend, suggested this may be about control. By keeping me off balance, she sees herself more in control, when all I want is some kind of civil relationship, if not friendship.

The wine was supposed to be gesture of peace, a sign that perhaps we can get back to being work mates and put all the crap behind us.

Unfortunately, it didn’t work out that way. She saw the bottle and deposited on the cubby hole desk where I work on Tuesdays – as a clear indication she doesn’t want peace.

Then, as if to add to the confusion, she emailed me a story she was working on, and called to let me know she would be going to the publication party later.

I didn’t go. I heard later she left the party early.

 

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Spreading her wings with hopes to fly May 31, 2012

  

In a poem posted at the end of May, she took a break from the fear and loathing to apparently address her frustration at not advancing fast enough in her chosen career.

The poem basically depicts a superior of some sort lecturing a novice and denying the novice the advancement the novice apparently believes she deserves.

In this, the poet takes on the persona of this superior and the poem is essentially a lecture on how the novice does not deserve yet what she seeks.

The speaker is portrayed as selfish, possessive, territorial, arrogant, perhaps more than a little pompous, self-congratulatory, but also powerful, or in a position to keep the novice from achieving what she wants.

The novice wants to advance and the speaker, arrogantly, says she ‘s not ready, and can’t get what she wants until she had earned her stripes, working up through the ranks the way the speaker had.

The person spoken to is a novice, or as she portrayed herself in the office to me and others, a cub, who came on originally seeking to learn, but at this point thinks she is ready to advance, needing to climb the next rung of ladder of power.

While the novice never speaks directly in this poem, you get a reflection of her ambition from how severely the speaker puts her in her place.

The speaker is entrenched and clearly sees the novice as a threat to his or her power, someone who the speaker thinks wants to usurp her authority.

From the opening word “Nope,” the poem sets the tone of negative and threatened authority seeking to protect its turf. The speaker clearly has power over the novice and has passed judgement on her as to her abilities.

Possessing the position of power, the speaker is lecturing the novice, telling her to work her way up through the ranks the way the speaker did, and in the process learning how to handle the power the novice so obviously craves.

But the speaker clearly has no intention of sharing his or her power with the novice, and if the novice wants power, she is going to have earn it herself without help from the speaker.

The poem is structured using two sets of triplets, the first half using parallel line structure with the first three lines ending parallel phrases: have it, want it, touch it.

The second triplet is more conventional rhyme scheme with lines ending with own, groan and alone.

These phrases and rhymes create a pounding rhythm, which one could easily picture caused by the pounding of a judge’s gavel.

The basic judgement is that the novice isn’t ready for the power she seeks, and even then, the speaker isn’t about to give her any of his or hers.

There are a lot of words in this poem denoting possession: have, want, touch, get your own, wielding, and the tone of the power denotes a struggle for power in which the novice is clearly at a disadvantage.

The tone of the speaker suggests fear of being challenged or overthrown or replaced by the novice, a loss of status or authority if the speaker allows the novice access in any way.

Rather than share power or nurture the novice, the speaker clearly wants to keep the novice as arm’s distance, forcing the novice to claw her way up the power grid.

The poem clearly reflects the slow pace of advancement she (poet and person) feels. She has always been ambitious in every job, always coming in as a cub and then expecting to advance quickly until she might rule the roost, pushing herself and petitioning those above her to make room for her at the top – trickling up as she put it in one of her other poems.

While it is possible the speaker of the poem is supposed to be me, it is not likely (or a misperception of my position in the company by her).

The poem comes at a time when the original boss returned from maternity leave, and the temporary boss returned to less prestigious duties, largely voiding the mentor relationship she had with him when he was in charge. The poem is not about the temporary boss since he did his best to help and guide her.

She had some issues with the original boss, adding evidence to the idea the boss is the speaker, but that’s pure speculation.

The novice in the poem is clearly frustrated by still being a novice and appears to believe she has already proven herself. The poem shows from the speaker’s reaction a novice who is clearly frustrated by lack of access to power and who is seeking to rise up and spread her wings.

How she expects to advance passed through roadblock remains one of the unanswered questions in this poem.

 

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A party for a magazine? June 16, 2012

 

So, we’re having a launch party for the new magazine at a posh local bar, rumor has it as the result of a suggestion she made to one of the owners. But gossip at the office flowed fast and often was unreliable. But it was clear she intends to go, which means I would not. I have no intention meeting the night shift on her turf.

Meanly, I wonder if she finally got the raise from the owner she’d been pushing for, and again from the gossip mill, pondered the expensive gifts she’s been receiving such as an iPad and a new guitar. If the raise is true, then a lot of other people in the office will be peeved since nobody’s gotten one in years. She’s worth the money being as talented a writer as she is, but then so are a lot of other people on the staff.

She loves inserting sexually provocative material in her copy – not just the Pizza man story, but a number of others as well, seeming to get a giggle when she describes them at the meeting. I thought I even saw the owner blush once or twice.

I wonder about the party itself since the owner cancelled three Christmas parties in the last three years. If she did arrange it, she really has pull with the owner no one else has.

She’s a great writer, perhaps the best since Andy left back in the mid-1990s. But the owner is such a tightwad, I can’t imagine why he would hold a party for a magazine at anyone’s request. Most likely, the venue is paying for it in exchange for free advertising, but still…

`

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Finding peace June 26, 2012

  

I don’t always know what to make of her journal, for whom it is intended, and whether or not she is talking about a new severed relationship or the same old one we’ve seen since the bar scene in May.

Every time she wants to forget bad times, she talks about moment to moment, and she appears to be trying to stay in this moment now, and not think about the past or the future.

She seems to have the same issues most people have, always hooking up with the same kinds of people who are always going to let her down. But she always seems to find someone new the moment this happens, and there is always a line of men (and women) waiting for her attention. Just who this is this time, I can’t tell from her posts, and will any of the new crop be more acceptable than those she has already discarded?

And today being Tuesday, I have to wonder what I should expect when seated across the big table at the meeting. Will she look as broken as she did last week or as enraged?

Will there ever be a time when the hatred ceases and we can find peace?

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In need of a raise June 23, 2012

  

Being in the annex office four out of five days of the week, I’m not privy to the latest gossip until it’s already old on Tuesdays. My immediate supervisor who is privy seemed surprised when I looked shocked at the rumor about her (not my supervisor) and one of the owners, and that this was general knowledge around the rest of the main office.

I had suspected something when I saw her flirting with him several times after meetings and saw the look on his face during the meeting when she brought up very provocative story ideas. We could count on her to come up with risqué suggestions, some of which even actually eventually made their way into print – if in a modified form.

Other than such vague associations, I had no way of knowing the truth to such gossip – the main office is a treasure trove of such rumors, not so much about her, but about everybody, which is one of the benefits of my working elsewhere most of the week, even though I often feel completely out of the loop for accessing necessary information to do my job.

She has also become much more wary lately, either because she still sees me as a threat or possibly has found a new enemy, I know nothing about.

I do believe my Mary Ann (my old friend going back to grammar school) that she needs to feel in control and must manipulate the situation to allow her to do that.

How much control she has now, is anybody’s guess? She spoke a few times about trickling up and so the boss might be a logical next stepping stone to the top.

Rumors said she had been involved with one of the layout people on the first floor. So, it is possible she has moved up floor by floor until she reached the top of the heap, making each of us a member of the special selection she invited up to Cloud 9 from time to time, nearly all of them married.

She told me early on that she never cheated in a relationship, but that men who she got involved with sometimes did on their wives.

“I can’t control what they do,” she said.

She once told me that during her five years of marriage she never cheated once, despite the fact that her husband constantly suspected she was, and then did not have sex for a long time after the marriage ended. Two of her friends, a man and a woman, deliberately seduced her to get her out of that funk.

“They knew I needed to break out,” she said, calling it “delightful and fun.”

Maybe she has gotten wind of the rumors about her and the owner, which would explain the fresh batch of dark looks she gave me during the meeting, maybe even thinking I’m the source. I did email her last Saturday after she claimed she was to meet with the owner on Friday to ask for a raise.

“I can’t keep taking money from my father to pay my bills,” she told me.

In my email I asked if her attempts to get the raise were successful. She never responded.

 

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I’m not that stupid June 20, 2012

  

I really did want to go to the publication party tonight. But decided against it to avoid a scene. This is her turf as proven by that last night we had together at the bar. She knows its ins and outs, and I would make myself vulnerable if I went there knowing it is a lioness den.

If she wants to hurt me, she would have the means and opportunity to do so, and the sense of hostility was evident yesterday from the expression one of our receptionists had from talking with her. Since I am reluctant to expose all this to the general office, there is no way to tell my side (if indeed I have a side to tell). Anything I would say would only make things worse and convince her that I am conspiring with other employees against her when I’m not.

I have to accept all this as a lost cause. Whatever healing I thought we wrought last week has evaporated if it ever really existed except in my mind.

I think she just got uncomfortable with the whole thing, regardless of how professional the relationship. She refused to send me information I needed and suggested (via email) I collect it after she’s posted it on the web as breaking news, a clear message that she has decided to sever even the professional aspect.

How far this will go, and whether she will try to get me fired is anybody’s guess.

The owner appears to be unaware of the situation, despite the pained and angry looks she gave me during the routine meeting.

I think she’s still upset with some of the poetry I’ve posted, even though I yanked it down.

As for the office antics, she will do what she will do, and it’s up to be to be a big boy and not let it get to me.

But going to the launch party would be like rolling over and exposing my belly and inviting an attack. I won’t do that. I’m not that stupid.

 

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