Chaos Attraction

Sadness and Storytelling

2018-11-09, 9:10 p.m.

Boss’s last day today.

(I think I am going to need to come up with some alias for him if I mention him further after this...unfortunately he has a common name that is the same as someone in my past so I don’t think I can use that one...I dunno...)

The party went well, a lot of people came, including ones from other offices. Certain people were on good behavior. Our ex-coworker (in this group) who got another job came and actually talked to me a bit. It went along the lines of “So...this wasn’t your idea to get transferred?” “No.” “Did you get any say in the matter?” “No.” Another ex-coworker who used to be in public service was all, “They’re putting you in the call center? Oh nooooooo, you’ll never get any quiet.”

The ex-coworker wanted a photo of all of us who had worked under my boss. Now THAT’s an interesting photo. I made sure I got one too, but looking at it makes me think, “Who’s wrong with this picture?” That’d be me, of course.

I talked to my boss’s wife, who was all, “I haven’t seen the doll yet but he told me he loved it!” (He still had it at the office, he packed it to take along to the new office.) I showed her the picture.

We had our REALLY last one-on-one that day--I’d thought he wasn’t going to do it on his last day but he did them all for all of us, and he said he didn’t have much to do after the party besides pack and, no joke, be on a conference call from 4-5 that day. (Sheeesh.) So what did we talk about? His job hunt--he said he just applied for two, was conflicted about leaving and was all “eh, I’ll give it a shot” and then got interviews for the two and landed one. That the people at the new job seem nice so far. We talked about books, about e-mailing later on, about people’s tempers and my career counseling appointment. We talked about former coworkers not too many people here remember, but we do (he’s about 2-3 years behind me in employment here). He said that he went over the resume of one of them and said she was really minimizing herself when applying and I said “that’s what women do all day.” He said it was easier to job hunt when you know what you want to do rather than my “I just want out of this” situation. We talked about people management, about Legoland, just...all kinds of stuff. Oh yeah, and we got our picture taken together without the rest of them.

After the hour was up, I went to go look at stuff on microfilm and since the person I had to look up was close to when I got here on microfilm, I looked up my own records. I found two things I had had no idea happened but were remedied before I ever knew about it, and I found my old entry essay, which was actually pretty damn good.

I will miss him. I has the sads.


That night, I went to “Capital Storytelling,” a storytelling event in an area of Sacramento I don’t go into much.

(I fear that despite my trying to pay for parking twice over in the dark, I got ticketed anyway--the event ran late and even though I paid for 20 minutes of overtime Just In Case, I barely had enough time to get into the car and drive, saw flapping papers stuck into my windshield wipers once I was on the freeway, and then of course they blew off. I am a moron. And now I can't check on this until Tuesday.)

They actually provided a transcript of the event ahead of time for free, which I was really impressed with. I’d heard about this one at the other Sacramento event I went to in September, but I looked on their webpage and it didn’t look like they had any way to get more news going. They did have a signup to be on their mailing list to be notified about classes and performances, so I signed up. They will be offering classes again in February/March.

The performances were:

(1) One lady talking about accidentally burning herself with hot water while trying to make jam (in all honesty, not my favorite but I am not into cooking).

(2) One guy with alopecia talking about having to say farewell to his hair and giving in to nature by having it all shaved off one last time. This was really touching, actually. Makes me rethink about whether or not to tell less funny stories, anyway.

(3) One guy--kind of my least favorite of the night because he was kinda rambly and “uh” and “you know”-ing like a LOT (he was a college student). He talked about only knowing Spanish and trying to say he was lactose intolerant and only being served milky foods at school, which turned into the time he got hit by a car and survived.

(4) This one was exciting: it turned out to be the teacher of the improv class I am taking tomorrow!!!! And she had a really good one too, called “Limp and Stupid.”
It talked about:

(a) her mother mentioning that drunks don’t get hurt in the car crashes they cause because they’re so drunk and relaxed and “limp and stupid.” So she took that as her motto, actually DID THIS when she got into a car accident (nobody had been drinking) and was thus the only one uninjured and able to help people.
(b) She took this really as her life motto after that and was trying to be all easy to be with and mellow even as her relationship was eventually not working out.
(c) She had to suck it up and break off the relationship and leave their theater group and move on.

I really liked it. It turned out she was sitting in the row ahead of me but on the other end, and I was sitting by a bunch of her friends apparently. But they were all talking and I was all, “um, I want to talk to her but she’s a bit far off and I don’t want to interrupt...” and I had my knitting project growing on my lap at the time so that was a bit hard to get up. (I was sewing a vest together and putting the buttonband on.)

5. This girl was of Swedish heritage and was talking about how her mother and grandmother would make stuff up occasionally. She had to interview an immigrant for school, so she interviewed her grandmother, who told her that they used to skate on the frozen ocean. Then the teacher thought she’d made the whole thing up and said that oceans don’t freeze up. The girl felt stupid, and for years afterwards would tell people this story about her lying grandma. Then recently she met someone who said “actually, around the time and location your grandma grew up, that did happen.” Surprise!

6. This lady is a dollmaker and got asked to make some fancy dolls for an exhibit in Charleston. She wanted to go to the event and booked her tickets, and then lost her job a month before the event and felt like she could not go. But she really wanted to, so she saved and went anyway. She mentions at some point that she was asked if she’d sell the dolls and she said sure. That sort of thing doesn’t sell here, so when asked for a price she said $100. The lady on the phone was horrified and the dollmaker was about to say “Never mind, I can do $75!” and then the phone lady was all, “I’d charge $350 for that.” The dolls eventually sold for $700. As a crafter, I was impressed.

7. The final story was about a girl who went to a storytelling workshop (I believe all of these folks were in a storytelling workshop at Sac State) and was trying to figure out what to tell, and realizing that she wanted to tell about the time she was raped. She didn’t quite do that here, it was more about getting up the nerve to tell it sometime.

Afterwards, I went to the improv instructor and told her I’d be in her class tomorrow and I really liked/related to her story and she was all, “Can I hug you?” HECK YEAH!

So I would have left on a good note except for that damn parking ticket thing. Sigh there. I can’t even call them to find out how much I have to pay until Tuesday, and I probably can’t submit evidence to prove I paid without the ticket info. Fuuuuuuck.


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