Undatable

Sitting in the cold dark alone at the dining room table still and again--I understand now why the images are such as they are.  How could I make anything else. . ?  The dark, isolate horror, the cold beauty and fruitless desire both attractive and repelling, profound beyond simple happiness.  Stripped bare, donning masks.  Seeking refuge where there is none.  My mind unfolds.

My work wife is leaving.  My secretary.  She has been there since I became a foreman, a long time now, and like any marriage, we have had our ups and downs and have worked out a happy arrangement.  I've been to her daughter's graduation (two of them) and her wedding.  I've been to the funeral of her husband.  She knows my foibles and takes care of me.  I don't know what she does, don't know the routines nor the software that is required, but she knows what I should do and when.  She keeps me out of much trouble.  And now, in weeks, she will be gone. . . another of life's losses.  It feels sometimes that is all life is, a stripping away of things, a series of depletions, a paring down to the bone.  I will be troubled without her. 

We are in the process of hiring someone to replace her now.  We have been doing interviews.  I listen to the committee's questions as an observer, then I take the candidates aside and talk to them on my own.  It has been embarrassing for me that many of the secretaries from other offices at the factory have applied for the position, even those at a higher pay grade who work for administrators who have positions greater than mine.  They want to leave their supervisors to come work for me.  I am the fun boss, they say, easy and relaxed.  That is the way I seem, I suppose, the "holy goof."  They think two things about me.  1) I am funny, and 2) nobody wants me to be otherwise.  That doesn't turn out so well. 

But there are others, too, whom we interview who do not work at the factory, and in my discussion with them, I feel obliged to ask them how they work with "crazy." 

"It is said that I am like the carnival come to town," I tell them.  "Can you deal with that?"

One woman, very competent and serious, asked me about my "management style."  She has a master's degree in something.

"I don't know what 'management style' means," I told her.  "I don't 'manage' anybody," I said.  "Maybe I would say it is a liberal, creative chaos." 

Her countenance did not change.  She sat as proper and serious as ever.  Maybe I'll hire her just for the challenge.  On the other hand, she might get me fired.  She is like a movie secretary, pretty with a nice figure, nerdy/hip glasses and her wild-ish hair pulled up in a loose bun.  She looks like the kind who would report the first indiscretion.  Fucking HR. 

After we interviewed the last candidate for the day, the committee (three women including my secretary) and I sat in the conference room unwilling to get back to work.  We talked about the candidates and then about people who had taken the early retirement package and who would not be coming back for the new year.  The talk turned for a minute to someone in the finance office whose wife had died some years ago.  He had remarried to someone who worked in another office.

"Wait," I said.  "They are married?"

"Yes."

"I didn't know that.  Huh?  Remember when his wife died.  It was sudden and tragic, nothing you could plan for.  She was just here, then gone.  And what was it, like two weeks later that he had taken up with that tall blonde?  You'd see them all over the place holding hands, hugging and kissing."

"She was half his age.  That one went to HR."

"He was like a puppy, all cartilage, wiggling around."  I made some goofy puppy movements.  Everybody laughed.

"These guys don't take long after their wives die," one of the women said.  "Bob Crosby got married less than half a year after his wife died of cancer.  That was a strange one.  He found his first girlfriend on Facebook and they got together and married right away."

Bob was over sixty years old, and I wondered about all of it.

"Damn, I don't know how all these guys do it.  They have women falling all over them and I can't get a date!  And they aren't half as good looking as I am, either."  I gave a self-depricating laugh.

"You need to get on Facebook or something.  Jim met his wife on e-Harmony."

"Yea.  You should be on Christian Mingle."  Everybody looked at me and laughed. 

"I swear, if I was going to use a dating site, that would be the one."

"YOU should go on J-Date."

"What's that?" one of the other women asked. 

"It's a dating site for Jews." 

"I was raised Mormon.  Maybe there is a Mo-Date."  I realized what that sounded like right away. 

"Try Grinder," one of the women who works for me said.  The other two looked at me to see if I was laughing. 

"Maybe a last resort," I said.  "I don't know."

In the end, we all agreed that truly there just must be something wrong with me.  Perhaps I'm just "un-datable." 

"You're kind of unique," one of them said.  "I think you sort of scare people." 

I could see the subtle head shakes.  Goddamnit, I thought, it must be true.  I don't know why, but it must.  There was nothing to do but hold my head up so that I couldn't see the ground. 

I am giving up hope, really.  My body is betraying me, and in truth, I am looking awful.  I am trying the old "comeback," but the injuries keep mounting.  I guess it is ironic and funny in some dark way.  Yesterday, I went to the gym in the morning.  I did the elliptical machine as I was advised by the doctor to do before I tried running again.  I did a mile and a half according to the computer, and when I was finished, I thought that I should just try a slow, short jog on the treadmill to see how my knee held up.  I went a quarter mile with some weirdness but nothing sharply painful.  Great, I thought!  This may work. 

I drove home, and when I stepped out of the car, my back seized up.  I looked like a question mark the rest of the day. 

The good news, though, is that my knee felt fine.  Ho!

I went to a holiday party for all the foremen at one of the factory boss's house last night.  I went early so I could leave early.  Maybe the other's enjoy it, I don't know, but for me it is just like being at work.  I'm always in serious danger of saying or doing the wrong thing.  But, as I have said, there is something wrong with me, and one of the things I know of is that I am not very good at being quiet, and before I knew it, I was telling a story that went a little southeast, maybe, and soon people were heading to other parts of the house.  I couldn't figure out what exactly went wrong, but I knew it was something.  I was glad when my time was up and I could sneak out of the house and back to my car. 

At home, even though it was early, I could not keep my eyes open.  I gave up and got into my bed.  I put on the hillbilly music station I have created and turned out the light.  It was nine o'clock. 

I am going to start making pictures again, I think.  I have time now and no one to tell me "no."  I am good at it no matter how bad and weird the pictures are.  I don't care.  It beats the hell out of puppies and sunsets.