An Old Story

okay. i'm not sure why this is in my head or if it's a good story, but i'll tell you about when i used to work for zen.

a few years back, when i was living in Amazonia, i had a whole lot of no money. i had so much no money i didn't know where to not put it. i thought, hey! i could all get a job and stuff!

i'd been "working" as a freelance writer which involved very creative projects like vacuuming jennifer's flat free of walter-hair and dusting her nine-katrillion little objects d'art. i'd also been working on a bigger project that involved me chaperoning high school schitzophrenics on a trip to LA and keeping them from hurting themselves during free-form meltdowns on major airlines.

with all that writing going on, i thought i better lay off some or i'd get burned out.

i got connected with zen through a group i belonged to, but didn't know her at all. she, being one of those many irons in the fire women, had a few companies and she needed some part time help doing order fulfillment and other hoop-de-doo.

i said, oh boy am i your hoop-de-doo man! i got the hoop-de-doo down pat!

and like that i was initiated into the high-speed, high-tech world of mailing out jars of orgasm cream and explaining on the phone what the hell it was and saying, "i'm very sorry, ma'am" to people who called up and were upset that it didn't taste good on toast.

yes. you heard me right. included among my many and varied careers is Orgasm Cream Salesman. what? yes. it is cream that you rub on your hootchie and which i've been told makes you go all tingly-wingly and which does not, i'm warning you, taste good on toast.

no. i never tried it. i do not have a hootchie and felt the last thing i wanted was my wanger feeling all tingly-wingly any more than it does normally.

anyway. i worked for zen and we got to be pretty dang close 'cause we're both those sorts of people who decide to just bond with everyone they sell orgasm cream with. it was a little dull, but also sort of fun. we worked in this flat on mission st with kat and her son, chase. chase had learned to walk early and chase turned out to be a very appropriate name for the little muppet. (drool also would have been a good name for him.)

every so often zen would have me come over to her desk which was swamped with things to do and emails and phone messages and crap and give me some bit of instruction on what she wanted me to do next.

she would say, "(embarassing nickname), i need you to pull together a spreadsheet of everyone who's made a purchase in the past three months and print out mailing labels and brochures and..."

at which point i would interject hopefully, "set a fire and run?"

i think zen was occassionally tempted to say, "yes. that would be good. set a fire and run, please." but usually she just smiled in a chagrined sort of way and said, "noooo. not yet."

i've tried that here at the symphony and it does not go over so well.

i think it's generally good advice though.

frequently that's what i want to do when at work. i look at the files and the stacks of contracts on my desk and think... hmm. i should just set a fire and run. i know as upset as everyone would pretend to be deep down they'd be relieved to say, "nope. can't do that for you. our assistant decided yesterday to set a fire and run so if you want to hear some grade-A classical music i recommend you start learning the violin. thanks for calling. now i need to go eat some ice cream."

i suppose this story comes to mind because i need to start packing. i'm moving soon and i've got all this stuff that i've collected over the years and dragged from house to house and it's really time to put most of it in a big pile, set a fire, and run.

i've got t-shirts i silk screened in high school and letters from people i don't really remember or care about and books i've never read nor ever will. i've got sheets with holes in them and a tiny bit of blue hair dye and medications that didn't work and expired when reagan was president.

and i've got stuff that madhavi's got, too. between us we've got at least two full sets of nice flatware. it feels like moving in with her i should just give away the extra set. like i should set a fire and run. i'm not going to leave a safety net to come back to 'cause i'm not coming back.

i think you should read dooce today, 'cause she's funny.