I think I've said it before, but my backyard always has a surprise for me. The couple who lived here before me cultivated a garden in the backyard. I have done next to zero work back there, and every spring I get a surprise. Usually it's a single stalk of corn, and it always grows in a different place back there.
This year, it's a tree.
On Sunday, there was nothing but blooming plants and flowers in my backyard. It's been raining ever since, and it will continue through to Friday. And then I took out the trash tonight and saw, shockingly, that there was a tall plant near my separate garage. The stem is made of bark. Maybe, just maybe, it's a lilac bush. I have one back there that is so big it would qualify as a tree. But this new growth is blooming up top, and it doesn't look like lilac.
How is it possible that a tree is suddenly growing in my backyard? Nothing has been planted back there in the more than 15 years I've lived here.
This garden never ceases to surprise me.
Tuesday, April 30, 2019
Monday, April 29, 2019
GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #282: BLUE COLLAR
Sometimes I miss working a blue collar job. I have worked white collar for almost 15 years. I have been in telecom for just that long. You know what happens when you work in telecom? You realize that she shit you do almost means nothing.
I remember when I was a kid, and my mom would bring me to the park. Aside from playing Luke Skywalker on the bridges and at the pole, my favorite thing was the shovel. I'd sit down and scoop into the sand, digging as much as I could and casting it aside. I could never dig as deep as I wanted to, but I tried, goddammit.
Fast forward to now. I take the train to my telecom job in the city. Along the way, we pass several scrapyards. At one of them, we pause so some train employees can get on at the first car. I love watching as cranes pick up scrap metal and move it. It doesn't even make sense, but I like to watch it.
When I worked a blue collar job, I went home with the satisfaction that I actually accomplished something. In my white collar jobs, that's impossible. I never go home thinking I made the world a better place.
Here's the deal. Telecom works kind of like magic. I'm well versed in the history of the industry--back to when it meant lighting giant fires on mountaintops so other people on mountaintops could see it and light their own--and the fact that any of this shit works at all is kind of a miracle. I don't get it, and I've read extensively on this. People get furious when it doesn't work, and I get it. Telecom is a convenience that people are used to. If it goes wrong, it's a catastrophe. Yet from my perspective, people should never get upset over this. Because fuck magic when it doesn't work, right?
I remember not being in an office. I remember being on the open road fulfilling the needs of my fellow blue collar workers. I miss that kind of freedom. At the same time, I never got the awesome benefits that I get now when I worked blue collar. It's a constant struggle between the two worlds.
I wish I had another option. But fuck it. We're all doomed, aren't we?
I remember when I was a kid, and my mom would bring me to the park. Aside from playing Luke Skywalker on the bridges and at the pole, my favorite thing was the shovel. I'd sit down and scoop into the sand, digging as much as I could and casting it aside. I could never dig as deep as I wanted to, but I tried, goddammit.
Fast forward to now. I take the train to my telecom job in the city. Along the way, we pass several scrapyards. At one of them, we pause so some train employees can get on at the first car. I love watching as cranes pick up scrap metal and move it. It doesn't even make sense, but I like to watch it.
When I worked a blue collar job, I went home with the satisfaction that I actually accomplished something. In my white collar jobs, that's impossible. I never go home thinking I made the world a better place.
Here's the deal. Telecom works kind of like magic. I'm well versed in the history of the industry--back to when it meant lighting giant fires on mountaintops so other people on mountaintops could see it and light their own--and the fact that any of this shit works at all is kind of a miracle. I don't get it, and I've read extensively on this. People get furious when it doesn't work, and I get it. Telecom is a convenience that people are used to. If it goes wrong, it's a catastrophe. Yet from my perspective, people should never get upset over this. Because fuck magic when it doesn't work, right?
I remember not being in an office. I remember being on the open road fulfilling the needs of my fellow blue collar workers. I miss that kind of freedom. At the same time, I never got the awesome benefits that I get now when I worked blue collar. It's a constant struggle between the two worlds.
I wish I had another option. But fuck it. We're all doomed, aren't we?
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