My Mundane Life

My name is Francis and I work in a light industrial building three blocks from my apartment. I’ve been continually surprised to find out that the important people in history kept journals of their lives, so I decided to keep one myself. Not that I, in any way, believe myself to be important. On the contrary, I lead a normal, highly regular and enormously boring life. But perhaps if I’m force to put it down on paper every night, I will start changing it. Besides, in an odd sort of way, I believe that keeping a journal means I’m already more likely to be important, because I am keeping a journal. This will be the last time I refer to anything other than the events that have occurred since the last time I wrote. This is not my “Dear Diary”, it is a journal, and as such will henceforth contain just recollections of what I’ve seen, heard, and felt. As it is a journal, it needs to be read, but I hope I am not around when that happens.

Tuesday November 1, 2005

It was chilly today when I left for work. Not terribly so, but enough that I wore my hoodie. I actually prefer the cold to the heat, and so was rather happy that the weather was finally getting cold enough for a sweatshirt. Maybe I can start sleeping with the comforter soon. I always think I sleep better in the winter when I can actually cocoon into my bed for the night. Anyhow, I got to work at ten past nine and went to my desk in the lab. The lab is a large open space with raised flooring for the cables and water to run under and more fluorescent lights than you ever wanted to see. Tables run in 100 foot rows down the lab with production and test equipment breaking up groups of tables. I have four computers on my desk and nearby, but use one primarily. I checked my mail on my laptop and found nothing of interest. It’s Friday, so I entered my timecard.

Then I started working, and that’s what I did for most of the day. Henry had some stories about his kids and wouldn’t stop telling them, even when I clearly wanted to stop listening and go to work. Kim sits across from me and I could tell she was getting annoyed as well. To dislodge him, I had to tell him I needed to use the restroom. I did, so it wasn’t a lie.

The restroom is a standard restroom in a large building. Four stalls, four urinals, and there are three more like it, one on every corner of the lab. I used my normal one for taking a leak. When I came in, there was one person at the left end urinal. A normal guy might think that either the rightmost urinal or the one next to it would be an appropriate choice, but I had thought this through. If you take the one that is second from the right, if another man comes in, they MUST use one next to you. (Assuming they want to use the urinal, and assuming they won’t use the stall instead given no urinal with an appropriate split.) But if you take the end urinal, there is a 50% chance the the person who comes in next will not be standing next to you. If the person comes in directly after you, that chance is higher as they will stand next to the person who has the best likelihood of finishing first (the person who was already there when you came in) There is no situation in which the end urinal can result in a worse split that the one next to it, and so I always take that one. The only unfortunate thing is that the right end urinal is much more exposed to the room than the left, but such is life.

My boss called me into his office an hour or so later to discuss my workload and give me another task for my list. It doesn’t seem particularly hard, but isn’t very interesting as a result. It’s another couple of buttons on another dialog to do something that some customer decided they wanted. I estimated it was a week of work and promised to get on it after my next two tasks were completed. Then I returned to my desk and started checking in the files for my last task which I had managed to finish testing in the last hour. This one was interesting and had taken me the better part of two months and about twenty five files. I set the check-in to auto run and decided to put off assembling the review package until later. I also didn’t feel particularly like starting my next task as I was going to head home in an hour and a half and that’s not really enough time even to start to understand what the approach should be. And if I do that today, I’ll most likely just have to do it again in the morning. So I decided to go online and find a few new items of clothes. My mother had informed me that Penny’s was having a sale, and I could really use some new work clothes, and maybe something to wear if I ever leave the apartment.

I asked Hannah what clothes she thought I should get, and she came over to help me out. Hannah is one of four women in my department and is extremely cute. She’s recently divorced and about six years older than me, but I can enjoy hanging out with her can’t I? She leaned over my shoulder with her hand on the desk to see what I was looking at, her eyes intently looking at my selections. She sighed loudly and told me to move. I refused at first, but she insisted, and I got out of my chair and let her take the helm. She removed the jeans from my order and selected a much more expensive, non-sale pair of carpenter jeans instead, added a brown leather belt and two long sleeved button down shirts. She also added two pairs of on-sale cargo pants in khaki and sand, (I refused the olive point blank) as well as one pair of chinos to my shopping cart. It was about twice what I had been planning to spend, but as a single guy in a one bedroom apartment, I wasn’t really hurting for money, and it was probably better than spending it on some DVD I would never really watch. I thanked her and placed the order. She said that any time I wanted to take her shopping with me, she’d be glad to help. Then she made some comment about me needing a girlfriend to which Kim, immediately voiced her assent. Bemused I turned to her and asked her if she had a candidate, at which point she and Hannah started talking rapidly.

“She’s got to be smart,” Hannah started,

“I’m sure Francis would appreciate pretty”

“Or cute,” I added hastily.

“Cute, pretty, same thing,” Kim dismissed my comment.

“No they aren’t,” I insisted, warming to my subject. Something I’d spent enough time talking to my friends about that they were sick of hearing it. “Pretty is a more statuesque, prepared beauty, cute is freckles and looks as good in makeup as out of it. Hannah here is classic cute.” Kim was classed pretty, but as a thirty-eight year old mother of two, I felt uncomfortable making that point and searched for a more comfortable example. “Charisma Carpenter is hot,” was what I finally settled on.

“He needs a girlfriend bad,” Kim said and my interjection was forgotten.

“So, attractive, smart, probably funny, maybe livelier than he is, so he’ll be pulled out of his shell?” Hannah paused for a second to consider candidates.

“She can’t be too lively, or he’ll be boring,” Kim was ever the one to make me feel good about myself.
“Thanks.”

“You know what I mean, don’t pretend to get all upset. Anything we missed Francis?”

There was definitely something they’d missed. I still have the old fashioned belief she should be Christian, even though I am a rather pathetic Christian myself. But I’d never made any kind of deal of my religion at work previously, and I really didn’t think that now was the time to start. So I said “I’d like her to be fairly conservative.” They knew I was a conservative and it was what I really wanted. I don’t really mind if she isn’t Christian as long as she won’t be trying to have sex with me. I really kind of want to wait, and I don’t think I could if I was dating someone who wanted to have sex. I only have so much willpower.

“Hmm, I’ll have to think about it,” Kim looked like she was now thinking too.

“Have to figure out who you wouldn’t mind losing as a friend by sicking me on them?”

“You have got to stop thinking like that now,” Hannah seemed mildly upset by what I had said, but I’m not sure why. “Women like confident men, and we wouldn’t be talking about getting you a girlfriend if we didn’t think you were good material. Notice we don’t try and hook up Matt.”

“But Matt doesn’t have trouble getting women,” I countered.

“But I never volunteer my friends or my services. He’s kind of a jerk. I mean, I’ve met much worse guys, but he’s a bit selfish when it comes to relationships, and I don’t think that makes him good material. I’d think he just needed to mature a bit, but he’s thirty-four, and you are much more mature at twenty-four,” Hannah’s compliment made me blush a bit, and I decided it was time to finish up for the day.

“Well, let me know if you find anyone,” I said, thinking this would basically end things, “and I’ll get this code review out. You mind moderating Kim?” She groaned, but nodded her head, and I turned to my laptop to schedule the meeting for the next week. I decided not to bother with the packets until the next morning. I was ready to leave anyhow, and I only had another fifteen minutes. Matt asked me to happy hour, but I begged off and headed home.

On the way, I stopped off at a local burger joint and got a bacon burger and fries to go. In this way I finished my day, eating my burger and fries, watching the SciFi channel reruns of Stargate which I’d seen three times each and then playing around on my computer until it was time for bed. I really didn’t accomplish a single interesting thing the whole day. There was the conversation about the “girlfriend” which I’m sure was more to make me feel good about myself than anything else, but that was it. Sure I got work done, but basically I finished my interesting task so that I can now do my two boring tasks and get assigned more of them in the days to come. If something doesn’t change soon, I may just have to leave everything behind and move. I’m getting pretty lonely in my apartment alone night after night, thinking about and categorizing women that I will never ask out or date. If I had a girlfriend, I think I’d be okay. I could hold her close and feel better about the world. Just having a warm body next to mine that I could hold in an affectionate way would make my life so much more worth living. I don’t know exactly what I would refuse at this point.