My night with the corporate hacks

Let me say that there is an experience I love in a way that moves my flesh. (Actually, there are several things that do so, but *this one* has nothing to do with sex.)

Specifically, it is walking into a room full of people who a) are still doing the same old shit that I am no longer doing and b) do not recognize me because I look so fucking good (which, mind you, is relative to how I used to look).

So earlier today, Red calls me up to tell me about her trip to Italy. Then she says, "Did RT invite you to his barbecue tonight?" ... Uh, no. But then, I've seen RT maybe twice in the past year, so I really wouldn't expect that," I reply. "Well," Red says, "I *can't imagine* he was trying to be exclusionary. Mr. Clean doesn't want to go, so come be my date." (Later, I got a few handfuls of flesh in exchange for doing so. But what can I say? Payback is hell. Don't ask....)

Anyway, I walk into the party -- indoors because, like, the weather SUCKS for a Memorial Day weekend -- and I am confronted with a whole bunch of people from The Known World, which, for my regular readers, was part of The Former World until I decided to integrate my various selves into a whole person.

Some of you may recall that I was laid off last year. The best rejection of my life was Corporate America telling me, "You don't fit in here." Praise ya Jesus and hallelujia, give me severance and unemployment! Amen! ... So this room I walked into was FILLED with former co-workers.

Red lead the charge, and I followed. Hello, Andy. Hello, Paul. Hello, Litty. Hello, Annette Funicello.

Annette had seen me back in March, so she wasn't surprised. But the rest of them? ... Out in the yard, Litty stood and looked at me. "Have you lost weight?" he asked. Yeah, but maybe you're noticing my hair, I said. "Your *hair*!" he replied. "It *is* different. Jesus, you look good."

Red said, "Check out that necklace."

Totally random. But Litty did. Then said, "Check out that woman I'm gonna marry next week." He pointed to this gorgeous Italian woman, and I resisted saying, Isn't she so much better looking than Adeline?

Litty asked me all about school and whether it was a dangerous thing for psychotherapists to "cram" too many credits into a single semester. If they're going to be therapists, I think it is, I told him. If they're going on to get a doctorate, I don't think it matters.

Then it was Clark's turn at me. "I didn't even recognize you when you walked in. Then I heard your voice, and I said, 'Is that *really* UCM?' You look different. You look great!" Too bad for you I'm still gay, I couldn't resist saying. Clark smiled and asked, "What have you done to your hair?"

Then, Red and I got a big old earful about his divorce three years ago, this being a man who does not talk about his personal life to his co-workers. He's too sweet and too good looking to be single. Even I want to fuck him.

But I digress.

We talked to Clark for a while. He said to me, "So, you disappeared, and where have you been? Apparently traveling and going to graduate school and getting better looking. Life is not fair." ... I'm a sucker for lines like that.

But then, I went in to get another glass of wine. This is where I met Catherine. She works in IT with my old company, and I don't believe we ever met. But she had been calling Red "loud and friendly," and when I said, You forgot the part where she's a total bitch, Catherine sidled on up and asked, "What do you know about it?"

Long story short, it was only a few minutes before Catherine was telling me all about how her "dream job" was to be a "trial psychologist testifying on behalf of crazy people. And not just regular crazy people but *CRAZY* crazy people. Like, you know, the ones who are in homes."

I think you need more wine, dear, said old UCM. And then, perhaps, you will actually avail yourself of some *food* to absorb ... how many drinks have you had, dear?

She raised four fingers at me. And said, again, that she works in IT. Poor thing.

I went outside and RT toasted some buns for me and gave me a burger. (BLINDER BEHAVIOR, Dr. M! And I'm really in a bad way about it.) Later, around the fire, he told me that psychotherapy was a world he knew nothing about. "It's very strange," he said, "to think that people will pay to talk to someone."

No shit, I said. But when you think of all the hours I spent listening to you for FREE....

He and Annette Funicello are getting married in the fall. Litty and his Italian bride -- and goddamn, she is sooooo much hotter than Adeline, even when you take Adeline's high fashion sense and fabulous shoes into consideration -- are getting married next week.

And Andy, who I've thought a bachelor all these years, turns out to have a wife of several years (strangely, neither can remember their wedding date) with whom he's been involved for more than 13 years. His wife asked me a lot of questions about therapy and later, around the fire, reported that I "know my stuff." (I was totally trashing CBT. Is it any surprise?) ... This despite the fact that she asked for my opinion about ACT, and I had no clue what she was talking about. After returning home, so drunk that I can't feel my legs (good thing I didn't drive), I Googled that and see there is something called Acceptance & Commitment Therapy. She read about it in Time magazine. I told her I was, as a former journalist and news hound, partaking in a "media fast."

I'm so full of shit. (Although that part about the news fast is true....)

Anyway, it was a peculiar night.

I did not, as I suggested earlier that I might, find any trouble there. How could I? All of these folks are slaves in Corporate America. I feel for them, knowing it was only a year ago that I was waiting to be cut loose from the plantation myself, no longer responding with a "yessa, massa," to the dictates of the next weenie up in the heirarchy of fools and misanthropes who run the place.

Catherine, upon hearing I had been laid off just a month before I intended to quit and go to graduate school, said, "It has been my dream to have that happen to me! To be told, 'Sorry, you don't fit in here' is all I've ever wanted. And I mean, like, that's why I wear these shoes to work!"

I looked down. There I saw a pair of pink Vans decorated with little sculls and cross-bones.

You're gonna have to step it up a notch if you want to get laid off, I told her. Try getting that design tattooed on the back of your hands. And then tell CR (one of the big wigs) that your tarrot cards indicate she's stealing from employee 401(k) plans. It worked for me! In the meantime, have a little more wine, dear. You work for Corporate America, and you want to be doing something else. Best you can hope for at this point is to forget about that for a few hours. Tomorrow is a holiday, right? For you, anyway. For me, it's just another Monday of blissful unemployment and graduate school. Bottoms up, darling. ... Cheers!