Into the depths of "the seven people you meet when you hit rock bottom"

Friends, I've come up with an outline for my book, and in doing so, revealed that it is divided into six sections. Section One, Voyage to Rock Bottom, is a nod to that 20,000 leagues under the sea title. Section Two, The Seven People You Meet When You Hit Rock Bottom, is chock-full of, let's face it, people who show up in your life when there's something (or maybe a lot of things) to be desired. Everything you've seen so far on this blog is from the first two sections.

On a related matter, the lady who is writing my story met with her writer's critique group and they want to see more snarkiness from Diva. That should be fun. Upon hearing about this, Diva is rumored to have replied, "Snarky? Moi?" and then unleashed a maniacal laugh. So, stay tuned. Those "revisions" are going to be fun to make!

The following scene takes place between me, Jane, and my office friend Patti at a bar, where interesting morsels of info are revealed:

  “I don’t want to date anyone now. If I find a real job, I’ll have to move anyway. It’s not really worth the trouble.”

  “Trouble, huh? Who have you been dating?” Patti asked.

  “Nobody that interesting, and nobody here,” I said, cutting off that discussion. In the world of office gossip, if someone gives up one little bit of information, it can get reinterpreted, repeated, and recycled.  “What will we do about you?” I asked, turning the conversation back to her.  “How did you rate your relationship with Andy? Was there a real connection?”

  “Yes!” she said. “We got along great! I miss him so much now. I don’t know what I’m going to do, and the thought of finding someone else... Omigosh, I’m going to die alone in this god-forsaken town!” she said, holding her head with her hands. Her formerly immaculate hairdo was in the process of falling apart.

  “No you won’t.  You’re too together for this place. You can move anywhere and work, can’t you?”

  Her eyes were sad for a moment.  “I hope so. Honestly, the state of the company seems to be a bit... shaky.”

  “What? You can’t be serious. People have been buying houses left and right. And now the prices are falling.”

  “Yeah, they were buying,” Patti said. “Six months ago, if they’d hired you, you would have made more money and had benefits. But, not anymore.”  She looked around her, as if spies were lurking at the nearby barstools. “Weird stuff is going on now. They’ve come in and changed what I do, made my job a lot harder than it was before. It makes me wonder.”

  “What?” I asked.

  “If I was doing what I was supposed to be doing before.”

  “Oh, shit! Really?”

  “I think I’m just being paranoid, but you never know. Don’t say anything to anyone,” she said.

  “If anyone asks, I know nothing,” I told her.  “Although that does not sound good.”

  Patti finished her drink and looked over at me, obviously ready to change the subject.  “But I really wanted to ask you, woman to woman: what should I do to get Andy back? Because I’m not going to meet anyone worth a shit around here.”

  “Are you sure that’s what you want? I mean, if he wasn’t making an effort before, what kind of husband would he be? Lazy? Barely interested in you? It doesn’t sound like a great plan to me, honey.”

  “I hear what you’re saying, but I’d like to get married and have kids. He’s a decent-enough guy, and we get along. Fairy tales are just that, Jane. But I had someone real.”

  “Of course, nobody’s perfect,” I said. But that sounds so bleak, I protested inside.

  “But what can I do?” she asked. “I feel so powerless.”

  “Oh, that? That’s easy. Make him wish he was with you. Make him jealous. Make yourself busy but not too inaccessible. He’ll be around in no time. And, if you can manage it, call him from a hot tub while you and your friends are partying in some exotic location. Seriously. A friend of mine won over her estranged boyfriend forever when she called him from Woody Harrelson’s hot tub in Miami. They got married! She and her boyfriend, I mean. Not my friend and Woody Harrelson.”

I am currently out of the office... ha ha ha

Friends, sorry about the delay. I've had such a fun weekend and I also got sucked into a book called "The Marriage Plot" by Jeffrey Eugenides.

On Friday and Saturday I managed to drive over 200 miles. I interviewed with a potential freelance client, came back home, and drove down to the beach with my FH to see friends and take in some great live music (80s throwback; I had to take out my scrunchie mid-show since it was giving me a headache, although the rest of my wardrobe was spot-on 80s style). Saturday I had writing class, followed by a nap (I can't stay out late anymore!) and a dinner out with FH at the fantastic Outback. Today, I called some moms, skyped a bit with the family far away, and finished reading this fantastic book. I won't tell you too much about it except that you should read it. And that it's set in the 80s, one of my favorite times to get nostalgic about since I was there and let's face it, it was a pretty awesome time :)

So that brings us to now. By now, most of my usual readers are in bed, and here I am on the West Coast, trying to get something together. So, let's agree to wait this one out, shall we? I'll put something together for you to read in time for Hump Day. And in the meantime, we'll all have a relaxing Sunday evening.

Much love to you all,

Jane Q. Phoenix

A glimpse of normalcy- A new office job, and then a happy hour with an office friend

Hi friends! Thanks for tuning in. In this scene, I've found a new temp job and maybe even met a new friend- my first in Winterville!

-Jane

***

It was with much trepidation that I even answered the job posting, which stated that the ideal fit for the job would be “able to complete several short-term projects every day as well as provide support to executive management.” Quote: “Must be able to work in a fast-paced environment and deal with constant interruptions.”

Some people love that.  Some people want to fight through every day, argue every point, run from place to place, yell, negotiate, and make deals.  These are people who work on Wall Street or in any position with the word “aggressive” in the description. They are also people who die of massive coronaries in their fifties.

People who loved that constant sea of conflict and stimulation didn’t have much in common with me. However, in an effort to bring in more money than an unemployment check provided, I had to loosen my standards a bit.

In my new position, I tried to make friends with some of the people around me.

Since I emanated the stench of someone who didn’t grow up in Winterville and had a bachelor’s degree, I gravitated toward people like me.  It was a big-enough workplace for that to be possible.  That’s where I met Patti Anderson.

Patti was thin and wore business clothing to work every day.  She may have enjoyed dressing the part more than playing the part, but her work persona was very dignified, in control, and professional.  Her hair was always up, and her shoes were always sexy. That’s what I liked about her at first; she didn’t seem like a stupid hick.

My job, while busy and ever-changing, wasn’t very challenging, so I didn’t need much coaching, but she and I would talk from time to time. I was amazed one day when she popped up with an invitation to Happy Hour. I felt like a contestant on The Price Is Right; I’d been in Winterville for over a year and never had the opportunity to take part in this type of workplace ritual[1]. So, I went.[2]

At Chili’s, the de-facto Happy Hour hotspot in our area of town after Bennigan’s closed, the drinks were flowing, and skinny little Patti was downing a great quantity of them while I nursed a rum-and-coke and promised myself I wouldn’t be too tipsy to leave if the evening got lame.

“Stressful week, Patti?” I asked her.

“You don’t know the half of it.  My boyfriend who lives 100 miles away dumped me last weekend,” she slurred.

“I am so sorry!” I said.

“Yeah, he said the distance was too much, yadda yadda, although he never made the effort to come see me here. Seemed put out when I didn’t have 4 extra hours in my weekend to make that drive to see him. Didn’t want to make the effort himself. He’s a Taurus, you know? His way or the highway. Or in my case, his way AND the highway.”

“I always choose the highway,” I told her. “It’s why I’m single.”

“The reason you’re single is because you’re here!” she said. “When was the last time you had a date?”

“That I could get excited about? 2006.”

“That sucks!”

---

[1] Note: Finance professionals tend to drink excessively.

[2] Note: Diva and I are allowed to ridicule finance professionals as much as we want, given that both of us worked in that anti-female, semi-toxic environment at a time when finance jobs were plentiful; we had to learn “new marketable skills for the workplace” to keep our heads above water in our post-college twenties and early thirties. Our foray into the financial world didn’t last for either of us, but we made some money and learned about finance as businesses mutated and shrunk due to the Great Recession. Besides, some of our best friends used to work in the financial industry- and a few still do.

Posing a question to the readers...

A message from that lady who's writing Jane's story:

Hi friends,

I had so much inspiration at the start of this story that I went crazy with telling stories of dysfunction, awkward social encounters, and other bits of mayhem. Now that I've passed the midpoint of the story, though, I have to think about how it's going to end.

So, before I write the sequel, Jane Goes to Hollywood, (I just can't decide if it should be Hollywood CA or Hollywood FL- either one has loads of potential) I pose this question: Should Jane fall in love at the end? Or is that too contrived? Do I answer questions absolutely or leave room for interpretation and possibilities? (I'd prefer to do the latter.)

It seems to me, from my semi-objective stance as the writer (and the person to whom only some of those odd, strange things happened) that our woman Jane should get a break once in a while.

I've worked on some other stories lately, from romances to action/adventure, and I know (from both the perspective of the reader AND the editor) that the loose ends have to be tied up. Readers don't want to be left hanging over what happened in a subplot, for example. Of course, it's not like everyone drops dead at the end of a book, so obviously the characters' stories can evolve beyond what was last written about them. The imaginations of the readers can decide what's next for the cast of characters. That's one of the fun things about getting to the end of a book.

Of course, I won't tell the story of what actually happened, because first of all that's private and second of all, no one would believe it anyway. But I do have an idea to give Jane a real love life by the end of this story.

Love,
The Author

P.S. from Jane: As the Smiths once sang, Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want... Lord knows, it would be the first time.

Winterville's Bar Scene- Yikes!

Hi friends! Jane here. This story took place when I tried to socialize with my neighbor T.W. and take part in a Friday night Happy Hour downtown. Unfortunately, a strange married dude named Narcissus wanted to add me to his collection of female friends he partied with, and I became more visible to him when T.W. went onstage and entertained the crowd at the bar's Open Mike Night. Narcissus, an aspiring singer, has just given me a free CD of his songs (that I honestly didn't want!).

***

  When T.W. walked off the stage and back to our table, I couldn't hide from Narcissus anymore. With another man by my side, I earned about 1,000 attractiveness points with him (Narcissus). I didn’t do anything to encourage this, but it seemed that Narcissus’ target was locked on me.

  Narcissus must need constant attention from women, but he is barking up the wrong tree in the wrong ZIP code if he wants it from me, I thought. I smiled at him briefly but avoided his gaze. What did he want? 

  It was a question I'd asked myself for a long time. Why did paired-off people feel the need to flirt with everyone in sight? Why were the married guys from work on the prowl at happy hour, or going to strip joints? What prevented some married people from acting like they were married?

  T.W. noticed Narcissus staring over at us and asked, “You know him?”

  “He has some trouble remembering my name,” I said, “but we’ve been introduced before.”

  He eyed the CD.  “Are you a fan?”

  “It was a freebie,” I said. “You understand I’m on a limited budget,” I added and winked. “That guy has a.... small-town flair.”

  “He has something, all right,” T.W. said, as he put his arm around me possessively. I sat there, rather stiffly, not knowing what to do. This wasn’t part of my usual interaction with T.W. Could this be the night he’d make a move? Oh, crap.

  After a few more amateurs took their turns on the stand, I told T.W. I wanted to leave. Friday nights were rough; the cumulative stress of either working as a temp or sitting at home fretting over my lack of income and the mounting bills that I couldn’t pay did me in at the end of the week. I wasn’t exactly springing out of bed every morning anyway.

  “Let’s hit Steak and Shake on the way home,” he said, and I agreed. Soon, we were in a black vinyl booth, looking at menus and debating which shakes were best. 

  T.W. needed some food in his stomach to sober up, and therefore couldn’t adjust his volume level down from the bar. He thought it would be fun to talk about the characters sitting in nearby booths. It wasn’t long before people noticed.

  “That guy’s giving me a look,” he said, both scared and macho. I turned to look at a redneck in a faded white t-shirt, threadbare blue jeans, and cowboy boots. He looked about 30 years old and had a tattoo of a snake on his forearm. He scowled as he looked in our direction.

  “Whatever, T.W. Stop looking at him. You are high on testosterone and drank too much.”

  “No really, he’s, like, trying to stare me down or something. Like your buddy Narcissus. Stupid mouth breather,” he said loudly.

  “Yeah, why don’t you say that a little bit louder?” I asked him. 

What's this? Happy hour!

Hi all! In this snippet, I've ventured into the world of temp work back in Winterville's smoking-hot job market of 2009 and found a drinking buddy at last. Enjoy! 

-Jane

***

  In my new position, I tried to make friends with some of the people around me.

  Since I emanated the stench of someone who didn’t grow up in Winterville and had a bachelor’s degree, I gravitated toward people like me.  It was a big-enough workplace for that to be possible.  That’s where I met Patti Drinking-Friend.

  Patti was thin and wore business clothing to work every day.  She may have enjoyed dressing the part more than playing the part, but her work persona was very dignified, in control, and professional.  Her hair was always up, and her shoes were always sexy. That’s what I liked about her at first; she didn’t seem like a stupid hick.

  My job, while busy and ever-changing, wasn’t very challenging, so I didn’t need much coaching, but she and I would talk from time to time. I was amazed one day when she popped up with an invitation to Happy Hour. I felt like a contestant on The Price Is Right; I’d been in Winterville for over a year and never had the opportunity to take part in this type of workplace ritual[1]. So, I went.[2]

  At Chili’s, the de-facto Happy Hour hotspot in our area of town after Bennigan’s closed, the drinks were flowing, and skinny little Patti was downing a great quantity of them while I nursed a rum-and-coke and promised myself I wouldn’t be too tipsy to leave if the evening got lame.

  “Stressful week, Patti?” I asked her.

  “You don’t know the half of it.  My boyfriend who lives 100 miles away dumped me last weekend,” she slurred.

  “I am so sorry!” I said.

  “Yeah, he said the distance was too much, yadda yadda, although he never made the effort to come see me here. Seemed put out when I didn’t have 4 extra hours in my weekend to make that drive to see him. Didn’t want to make the effort himself. He’s a Taurus, you know? His way or the highway. Or in my case, his way AND the highway.”

  “I always choose the highway,” I told her. “It’s why I’m single.”

  “The reason you’re single is because you’re here!” she said. “When was the last time you had a date?”

  “That I could get excited about? 2006.”

---

[1] Note: Finance professionals tend to drink excessively.

[2] Note: Diva and I are allowed to ridicule finance professionals as much as we want, given that both of us worked in that anti-female, semi-toxic environment at a time when finance jobs were plentiful; we had to learn “new marketable skills for the workplace” to keep our heads above water in our post-college twenties and early thirties. Our foray into the financial world didn’t last for either of us, but we made some money and learned about finance as businesses mutated and shrunk due to the Great Recession. Besides, some of our best friends used to work in the financial industry- and a few still do.

Two women walk into an office...

OK, I've already had some feedback on this section. The main consensus was, Jenny was too obnoxious before. I've changed the scene around to de-emphasize her quirks. What do you think of this scene? Feel free to send comments via email on Facebook or add comments below. Thanks!

***

(Note to reader: Patti is a somewhat friendly coworker at Jane's temp job at Thompson, Bell, and Johnson, a mortgage company in Winterville.)

Patti’s cousin, Jenny Cupcake, soon joined us at Thompson, Bell, and Johnson as yet another temporary worker. She spent the first week learning the ropes and seemed competent at answering the phone and taking messages, although no amount of training could teach her how to transfer a call. She shrugged and giggled a lot. In many ways, she was the polar opposite of Patti, and I soon figured out why. Jenny Cupcake had married young and didn’t have real work experience. More recently, her husband had left her.

“EEEEKKK! I dropped another call!” Jenny said, looking to me for help because my desk was near hers. 

“I’m sorry. Jenny, talk to the office manager about that. I have no idea what you’re doing.”

My productivity dipped (to say the very least) in the time Jenny worked in my area.  Her constant squeals and manic laughter, punctuated by tears, made it difficult to concentrate.  My headphones and I developed a very close relationship as a result, since they could block out much (but not all) of her noise.

Her story had tumbled out of her in the first few days she worked for TB&J, and her loud squeal of a voice ensured that everyone in the general vicinity of her desk knew it.  She was part town crier, part cheerleader as she shared a great deal of personal information with those around her.  Her story was this: she’d never worked before, except when she took classes in junior college and worked at the mall. Steve, her ex-husband, proposed to her when she was just 20.  She lived with her parents while she planned the wedding. Then, he bought a house, and they moved in as husband and wife.  It had just been perfect.

Some years later, he left her for someone he’d met at work.

I was nice the first few times she came to my desk crying.  I listened to her while she said terrible things about her ex-husband and comforted and encouraged her as much as I could.  Being constantly monitored and responsible for a certain volume of work, though, I would have to send her away after a few minutes.

I learned to be polite but distant, a skill I had honed in Winterville, and tell her I couldn’t talk to her then. She could come to Happy Hour with me and Patti, I told her, but we just couldn’t discuss this type of thing at work.

Then, she started calling me at home. At first, I was flattered.

Conversation 1 went like this:

“Hey Jane! Jenny Cupcake here. Omigosh, girl, you won’t believe it! My parents are handling all my bills AND paying for the divorce lawyer.  You know what that means: it’s time to go shopping!”

“That’s a nice offer, but I can’t afford to go shopping. Maybe lunch, though.”

“We can go to the outlet mall. That solves that problem! You can afford stuff at the outlet mall, right?”

“No, seriously, I don’t have the money to spend, Jenny. But thanks for the offer.”

I did the best to let her down easily, and then I heard from her again. Conversation 2 went like this:

“Oh, Jane, I’m so glad you’re home. I’m having a terrible day here. Can’t stop crying. How could my fairy-tale romance go so wrong? What does Steve see in that bitch?

“Sorry, Jenny, I don’t know what to tell you,” I said, while I thought to myself, Honey, I don’t even know you that well. Why are you calling me up to vent your problems? “Maybe there’s someone you could talk to about this?”

“Right, I’m talking to you,” Jenny said through her tears.

“No, I mean like a professional. Someone who can give you good, solid advice. I don’t know what I can do for you aside from listen.”

“It’s such awful timing,” she said, brewing a fresh batch of tears. “Have you heard? Andy and Patti are probably getting back together. How could she do this to me in my time of need?”

“Well, I don’t think that’s about you at all,” I said to her. “It’s between Andy and Patti.”

“Yeah, well, what was between me and Steve is off, and I don’t know what to do,” she pouted.

I thought back to the other places I’d lived and the phone calls from new friends I’d received before moving to Winterville. It was usually, “Hey, Jane, want to get together for game night? Let’s meet for lunch! I want to see that movie, do you want to come too?” I wasn’t used to, “Excuse me, I need to dump all my problems all over you and then make you feel inadequate for not having enough money to spend the day shopping.” This was definitely something new.