November 18, 2010
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It's late, it's late.
illustration by Edward GoreyI had meant to be up earlier. I woke up to the cat lying next to me, still as a sphinx, his handsome face tilted toward the grey morning light. The only indication he even knew I was there was a barely perceptible purring.
I'm losing patience with people. Customers at the shop waiver between helplessness and straight-out disdain, asking me questions they could easily find the answers to but would rather not bother. "Do you have Scott Pilgrim?" Well, I don't know. Did you look five feet to your left under the gigantic glowing neon NEW RELEASE sign?
People at the office continue to use me as a half-wit errand dog, affronted when I attempt an independent thought or suggest their bloated public sector systems might be inefficient. I listen to them mock each other for their entitled behaviour and, in the next breath, erupt in an effusion of complaint if they are asked to do anything for themselves.
And, once again, my apartment is freezing because the landlord doesn't want to pay for heat and the building manager will not entertain the idea that she could remedy this on her own because it is, technically, not her responsibility. I am surrounded by otherwise pleasant people who are incapable of seeing beyond their own convenience.
It's wearing me thin.
I am tired of doing other people's thinking for them. I am tired of being condescended to by middle-age ladies (good god, but the time is running short for me to use that as an epithet) whose IQs fall 20 points below my own. People, how do you function? Why does every action you undertake need to be a contractual obligation?
I used to find it sad, but I'm losing my empathy. I'm having visions of revenge and rebellion. A growing voice inside me is saying it would be easy to walk away from everything - just go. Go. Because why should I be responsible when no one else can be bothered?
g.
Comments (2)
you're preaching to the choir, let me tell you. *especially* about the stupid people sitting on you. lacking a PhD, the only way i'm going to get out from under them is if to get recognized for some landmark original research. which (probably stupidly) used to be easy to imagine myself doing. now here i am, staring at 50, being treated like a student technician, and...well, as you might guess it ain't happened yet. it probably won't. but there it is.
i dunno, g.. it's a tough world for thems what chafe under the yoke. but one way or another, we gotta come to terms with it.
Since September, I've been working part-time at a library on campus, and I am continually appalled by the number of students who come into the library, hand me an assignment sheet and expect that I will tell them what to do. As in, they have no specific questions and are not requesting information on a particular topic but instead just really can't be bothered to try and figure out any aspect of the assignment for themselves, from start to finish. Which I really, really don't understand. How did you get here?
But, you're right. At a certain point, it's not enough just to know that you know better. Especially when it's winter and you have no heat and no one will fix it. I'm sorry that's happening.
h.
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