thursday june 24 2004 | 3:04 p.m.
the karma-meter is plummeting lately. i tried writing about it, but it was too much. all i can muster is a list, like in the old days, the plan.com days when we stylized.
half-empty
1. big boss asked me to listen to the recording of a hearing to review an interpreter's performance, as one of the parties had complained about her translation. it turned out to be awful -- awful to the point of being hard to listen to. one of the parties actually interjected definitions and translations for her, and oh. it was bad, bad, bad. and i had to write a report about it. it hurts.
2. most awkward bus ride home yesterday after coinciding with the ex-roommate. there was nothing i could do. we sat in the back and, somehow, found small talk to engage in for 25 minutes. that hurt, too.
3. this one is really bad. so bad it's going to haunt me. i was talking to my boyfriend last week, while walking around, and we were going on about this guy i don't like, and i was making some pretty nasty statements about him. actually, we were in line at the movies, going to see supersize me. a few moments after we stopped discussing him, we turned around, and there he was, in line behind two other people. he's an odd one and the boyfriend and i were both terribly flustered, so we have no idea if he heard or not, but it's very possible that he did, and they would have been awful comments to hear made about oneself. to make things much, much worse: he's our property manager, and he lives around the corner in our complex. bad.
4. but wait! it gets uglier still. this is where i am delivered a cosmic kick in the ass. we get a letter slipped under the door yesterday, addressed to all tenants, announcing the resignation of the aforementioned property manager. [ heavy pause. ] the letter asserts that the resignation was accepted on the first of may, but . . . the timing is awful, and i just don't know.
5. i am reading alice munro, which is wonderful, but i feel like i'm trapped inside one of her stories. i should be reading david sedaris instead, as a counterweight.
half-full
1. jason, the salesguy who sells me my records at the local record store on my day off. last tuesday he gave me a wilco tshirt and told me a couple of stories about robert smith.
2. the cure didn't break up for good, after all. new album next week. i hope it's released on my day off, and i hope it comes with tshirt.
3. i discovered (discovered for myself, that is, she's well known to the world), through the last week's new yorker double issue, alice munro.
there's more, of course, but it's time to escape the office and hope for an uneventful bus ride. so. part one, then.
