Oddly enough, there’s very little I hate more than talking about computers. I do not mean talking about computer problems, which is a different conversation entirely. I mean talking about computers. My job was once to interview people about how technology has impacted their lives and then turn their stories into things like articles, case studies and press releases. Over the past couple of weeks, it has become very clear to me that my real job, my main job, is to have very long and painful conversations about computers. File formats, software versions, meetings held over the computer, internal and external networks, spreadsheets, access cards, read-only saving settings. When I am part of these conversations – and I often am – my skin hurts, my blood flows differently and my breathing shifts. I am not kidding: I react to it, and not in a good way. By mid-morning Monday I found myself on the verge of tears so I turned the computer off and left the house.
“It’s all I can do to resist the temptation to blow my brains out,” said the woman seated at the table at the front of the room. I never drank in moderation, but I do employ that approach when it comes to AA meetings. The woman continued: she couldn’t tell if her daughter really had stopped using heroine, or if that had been yet another ploy. She was exhausted, she explained, from shifting from feeling responsible – and guilty – for her daughter’s addiction to feeling rage toward her daughter for lying and then back to guilt.
I was elated, just listening to her. I was so relieved to hear someone speak about being human that I was hardly tempted to blow my brains out. The temptation I had to resist was to jump up and give the woman a hug. A big one, and I am not a huggy person.
I came home to a number of confused and confusing e-mail messages, most of them about computers. Can this template be uploaded at 12:01 AM? Is there a system for that? Can we post a video file? Jane Doe is building a slide deck for the shared drive. Joe Schmo will circle back with us EOD – for now, he’s synching content.
I left the house again and went to the monthly neighborhood association meeting. The meetings are interesting, and I’m friendly with a few of the people. It’s through the neighborhood association that I learned about the group planning a food co-op, which is something I’m now involved in. The cops show up and give a crime update, and the prostitution advisory group usually has something to share. It’s only a couple of blocks from my house, so it doesn’t require much effort, physically.
One of the people who spoke on Monday night is a man who’s probably in his late 50s or early 60s. I’ve noticed him before. He’s tall and appears to have steered clear of the slump and slouch. His slenderness probably makes his ears appear larger than they are, as well as his hands. I like it when he says something because he is awkwardly unscripted and at times hard to follow. When he speaks, it seems to me that he’s thinking at the same time. He’s the chair of some committee on neighborhood planning, so Monday night he got up in front of the room and rambled through a few topics, one of which was an update on citizen involvement in developing a new master plan for the city of Portland. He read a list of attributes the city planners would like to be associated with neighborhoods. “These planners, they’re good, the planners are,” he said, and rattled off a few more phrases, openly scoffing at a couple of them. “They have a lot of words, a lot of words. What they’re getting at though, now,” he said, the grasping visible on his face. “Now, I’m an engineer, and I like things clear and really up front right away.” He looked to the ceiling, as if for divine guidance. “Everyone should live within 20 minutes of everything they need. That’s what we’re talking about.” The man entertained a few pointless questions, the last of which was from someone who asked, very politely, if he would post his update to the association’s listserv. The man, to whom I plan to introduce myself at next month’s meeting, was silent for a second and a half or so, before saying, simply and beautifully, “No.” He returned to his seat and the meeting continued.
“It’s all I can do to resist the temptation to blow my brains out,” said the woman seated at the table at the front of the room. I never drank in moderation, but I do employ that approach when it comes to AA meetings. The woman continued: she couldn’t tell if her daughter really had stopped using heroine, or if that had been yet another ploy. She was exhausted, she explained, from shifting from feeling responsible – and guilty – for her daughter’s addiction to feeling rage toward her daughter for lying and then back to guilt.
I was elated, just listening to her. I was so relieved to hear someone speak about being human that I was hardly tempted to blow my brains out. The temptation I had to resist was to jump up and give the woman a hug. A big one, and I am not a huggy person.
I came home to a number of confused and confusing e-mail messages, most of them about computers. Can this template be uploaded at 12:01 AM? Is there a system for that? Can we post a video file? Jane Doe is building a slide deck for the shared drive. Joe Schmo will circle back with us EOD – for now, he’s synching content.
I left the house again and went to the monthly neighborhood association meeting. The meetings are interesting, and I’m friendly with a few of the people. It’s through the neighborhood association that I learned about the group planning a food co-op, which is something I’m now involved in. The cops show up and give a crime update, and the prostitution advisory group usually has something to share. It’s only a couple of blocks from my house, so it doesn’t require much effort, physically.
One of the people who spoke on Monday night is a man who’s probably in his late 50s or early 60s. I’ve noticed him before. He’s tall and appears to have steered clear of the slump and slouch. His slenderness probably makes his ears appear larger than they are, as well as his hands. I like it when he says something because he is awkwardly unscripted and at times hard to follow. When he speaks, it seems to me that he’s thinking at the same time. He’s the chair of some committee on neighborhood planning, so Monday night he got up in front of the room and rambled through a few topics, one of which was an update on citizen involvement in developing a new master plan for the city of Portland. He read a list of attributes the city planners would like to be associated with neighborhoods. “These planners, they’re good, the planners are,” he said, and rattled off a few more phrases, openly scoffing at a couple of them. “They have a lot of words, a lot of words. What they’re getting at though, now,” he said, the grasping visible on his face. “Now, I’m an engineer, and I like things clear and really up front right away.” He looked to the ceiling, as if for divine guidance. “Everyone should live within 20 minutes of everything they need. That’s what we’re talking about.” The man entertained a few pointless questions, the last of which was from someone who asked, very politely, if he would post his update to the association’s listserv. The man, to whom I plan to introduce myself at next month’s meeting, was silent for a second and a half or so, before saying, simply and beautifully, “No.” He returned to his seat and the meeting continued.
