File Under: "Slothfullness" (sic)

Dammit. I don't feel like writing an entry now, but I need to push the last one down the page a bit. It was one of those cursed entries (cursed as in gypsy curse, not "that cursed blackguard!").

This is just weird, man. I know I'm an idiot for expecting every comment to be pleasant and relevant, and I shouldn't let the negative ones get to me, but... from a guy who recently fired me? Pretending to be a woman? I mean, if you don't like someone, shouldn't firing them be enough of a thrill?

I was thinking about that job the other day, about how, unlike the other shitty jobs I've had, this one provided me without a single good anecdote. However, the people who worked there make for a nice, disturbing cast of characters. Don't get me wrong, I liked most of them a lot, and all of them at least a little, but just about everyone was a misfit. I don't mean that in a negative way, just that I think there might be a short story in it, at least. But I won't do it, and it has nothing to do with laziness. It has to do with my not writing about real people that I know, because it would be cruel. Because I am fascinated by people's flaws and weaknesses and secret shames, and I observe them and take notes in my head and store them away for later, but I'm not sure I ever use the data I collect. My fear is that someone I barely knew for a couple months a hundred years ago will someday see a hideous caricature of themselves in something I write and, seeing this side of his or herself they'd been too deluded to ever see before, spiral into a suicidal depression.

I'm sure I overestimate my powers, but I believe I have in me the ability to ruin people's lives with my cruel, cruel wit. I don't do it, though. I never do it. I tried to do it once, to a girl, back in probably 11th grade. We'd never actually met, but I knew who she was since she'd fucked at least four of my close friends. The first thing she ever said to me was, "I don't think I'd like you very much."

"Isn't it true," I began without a pause, "that you're so overworked down there, the only way you know a guy's inside you is a little bell goes off, like at the gas station when you run over that hose thing, and that you had a counter installed the rolls forward a number with each guy you've served?" Okay, so maybe I'd come up with that beforehand, though certainly not for that purpose, but whatever the case, it really made her cry. The hippie types she'd been lounging in the hall with expressed their disgust for what I'd done, but I felt I was just defending myself. I'm sure it was a few years before I even realized that what I'd done was wrong. It wasn't the cruelest thing anyone's ever done, and definitely not the funniest, and the few times in my life I've been tempted to let go and let people know what I really think of them (and I mean REALLY think of them), I've either backed down to a simple "fuck you" or taken the higher ground. Which is a much better feeling than being angry. I've had several of those. Feeling enlightened and superior on the heels of having done something noble is the best feeling of them all. I was too shocked by my firing to be angry about it. It wasn't until I called the guy back--and I would like to tell you about him, but I won't--and he seemed unwilling to hear me out and weigh the matter, so I threatened him with a discrimination suit (which I promptly rescinded) and then told him to go fuck himself.

It's very late, and I really don't remember the point I was making back there, if I was making one at all. The discrimination thing is the part I feel bad about. What had happened, basically, is one of the owners--the one who left the comments here--is a yarmulke-wearing zealot who would not have allowed me to work on Friday nights had he known my parentage, so his partner (who is forced not to come in on the Sabbath even though he is not at all devout) made me lie about being a Jew. Coincidentally, I'd uncharacteristically been reading up on the history of Judaism around the same time, and had really, for the first time in many, many, many years, begun to develop a certain pride in my heritage. So I was uncomfortable lying about my inherited religion for two reasons: one, I associated with the Muranos, the Spanish Jews who spared themselves by pretending to be converts to Christianity during the Inquisition, and because I wanted to able to talk about it with the guy who ended up firing me. That, because it interests me, and, frankly, I figured a guy who wears a yarmulke's going to treat me a little better if he knows I'm a Jew. Subsequently, I felt terrible about blurting it out on the phone at the end. I shouldn't have done it because it was nothing more than ratting out somebody who'd otherwise been good to me.

Christ, what a waste of time this has been. Rambling bullshit. I just feel worse about everything now, and I'm still disgusted that that guy even came to this site, let alone felt a need to chime in with his shoddy sarcasm. And the fact that it's coming from a supposedly religious person... I'm not sure I can get across how bizarre this is for me.

You know what? Fuck that. This is par for the course for that place and, most of all, this guy. Like I said, I don't have a lot of good stories to tell about this job, but you add some of the little ones up, they make for some interesting portraits. I don't say this as a threat (because it would be a shitty one), but this guy's making me consider the moral line I drew a long time ago, which is significant to me. Thought not to the rest of you, apparently. I should go to bed.