December 9, 2005
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It’s a Beautiful Sight/I’m Happy Tonight
While no daydreams are necessary to keep me enthusiastic about spending at day at my job at the Writing Center, there are days in my other job at the museum when a little daydream is needed to lift my spirits. Sometimes, I just need a little something to see me through the long afternoons of PowerPoint, data entry, invoices, and appointment setting. This really stinks because it is pretty difficult for me to take a moment to daydream properly here.
The first obstacle is my cubicle. The confines of my cube have a way of binding me to reality; I cannot escape. In this starchy, pre-fabricated environment, my extra long legs push up against the walls. At least once a day my feet get snared in the computer/copier/phone wiring beneath my desk, causing the keyboard wire to dislodge. I spill water on things; people ask what that “that smell” is during lunchtime when I open my little container of homemade dressing and the bitter, acidic, lovely reek of balsamic assails my area of the office for never long enough. In the one drawer I have reserved for my personal items, I keep extra forks next to extra tampons.
Outside of my cube is a narrow hallway. Directly across that hallway is a glass pane that acts as a wall to my boss’ office. From this glass pane, if she so chose, she could watch my every move. Luckily, she has a life and is cool, so she has better things to do that watch me create line charts in Excel. But still, the possibility of getting caught in the act is a major deterrent from any daydreaming endeavor.
My boss’ window—in full view from my cube—is of the floor to ceiling variety. It overlooks the posh Streeterville apartment high-rise across the street from the museum. Sometimes when my boss is out of the office or at meetings and there is no other danger of getting “caught,” I am able to gaze past her office and out her giant window into the neighboring apartments. Looking into these otherworlds for a few relished moments, my mind dances like Julie Andrews on an Austrian hilltop.
In one unit, a woman cleans her windows with vigor; in another a man scratches his balls with a curiously matched ferocity. A wrinkled, shrunken woman with hair the color of coagulated blood holds a chiwawa up to the window and makes him wave his paw at the world below; the dog’s skin hangs loose around his frame. I realize that many purse dogs have skin that looks similar to that of a relaxed human penis, or the soft sag of a dried plum. I contemplate when I first noticed that prunes were now called dried plums. I remember meeting up with an old friend from elementary school named Andy and how he insisted that I now call him Drew. I like Andy better, but I find the name “dried plums” to be a vast improvement. Although my favorite dried fruit of all time is definitely the fig. I wonder why these most delicious of all dried fruits are not more popular than chocolate. I realize I hate boxes of chocolate and I evaluate for a moment if my taste for chocolate has waned over the years. I decide that this is untrue, since I am still a freak for Cadbury Fruit & Nut bars. I spend a few fond moments remembering my freshmen year in college. FX was starting to rerun Buffy the Vampire Slayer 5 nights a week and my best friend Derek and I were on a quest to tape each Buff in chronological order. Before our episode began, we sometimes walked to the campus party store for snacks. I always got a Chunky and a Perrier. He got Sour Patch Kids and soda. I wonder how his teeth are holding up in recent years and I hope they are well. I laugh at a sudden memory of Derek shoveling Peeps into his mouth one Easter time, playfully screaming “CHUBBY BUNNY!” I let out a short laugh at the mental image before shaking my head and getting back to a thick stack of redeemed promotional offers to enter into the database.
This is how my daydreams typically go—a current of associations sweeping me away for a few precious minutes once a week or so. Yesterday I was slugging through an afternoon of attendance analysis and I needed a breather to maintain my sanity. My lovely boss was in a meeting offsite, so my eyes were happy to peel themselves away from the computer screen to gaze out the window and into the lives of those in the apartments across the street—my steadfast portal to sweet daydreams.
For a brief moment I was confused as to why my boss had put white butcher paper up over her windows. Then I realized that the wall of white I was looking at was snow. A beautiful, chilly blizzard.
While looking at snow through windows has some virtues—not freezing to death, for example—it is best viewed directly. Waiting for train home that evening, I became mesmerized with the swirling flakes. I watched them swirl and fly in glow of the headlamps at the subway platform. I was suddenly hit with a forgotten memory of my dad driving me to grandma’s house for Christmas eve. The world was dark all around us and a nasty snow storm was making my speed demon dad drive like a granny. We were comfortably quiet in the warm cab of the truck, concentrating on the snow. The sight of the flakes whooshing up to the windshield and getting swept away cleanly by the wipers mesmerized me; the dance of the flakes in the headlights left me breathless.
Yesterday the blizzard in Chicago lasted late into the night. Looking in the mirror upon my arrival home, I was pleased at the rosy-cheeked, glossy eyed, black lashed beauty staring back at me. I got snuggly in my pajamas and had sweet dreams of being the benevolent queen of Ice World.
Let winter hibernation begin!
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Does snow make you dreamy?
Comments (11)
i don’t miss the snow….
At night when the street lights shine on the snow and make it look like glitter on glue it makes me dreamy. When I’m shoveling and freezing my ass off it does not.
While being imprisoned in a cubicle one year of my life I weaved an intricate picture out of unbent paper clips into the burlap wall. It was quite stunning. My boss never noticed because she never actually stepped foot entirely in the cubicle to see the back wall. Fortunately her office did not have a view of my cell. I honed my solitaire skills to a fine point.
I’ve grown to detest snow. Wading through it, driving on it, shoveling it … snow and I have spent too much quality time together. Familiarity breeds contempt.
But a wonderful, detailed, engrossing story from you, as usual. I feel like my daydreaming life is boring and undistinguished by comparison. But then I don’t have much of an opportunity to daydream. I’d pretty much have to schedule it.
I love big heavy snowflakes. I like it when the air is thick with them and they soak up all the outside noise, making the world very quiet.
Of course, by March or April (or even May), snow has worn out its welcome. I’m always happy to see it again in the winter, though.
ryc: Well, you did keep saying you’d give your right arm for a moon pie, didn’t you? And I gave you a moon pie afterward, didn’t I? Apparently too much alcohol impinges the comprehension skills of even professional communicators.
Wow, what a nice blog entry. This is definitely one of your best. Daydreams. I’d daydream for hours at school and continued to do so at work. Then I heard about Adult ADD w/o hyperactivity, which I have, apparently. It all makes sense, because I could hardly force myself out of those daydreams.
Snow, I hate to say, makes me sad. I don’t like it. It makes me think of shoveling and getting wet and frozen, and how dreary the days can be when the snow gets old and dirty. I remember liking it as a kid, but then I didn’t have to shovel it or drive in it. I suppose the only good time is when you are snug in bed.
It did look pretty cool downtown. The Sears Tower was all frosted. I took some pictures and then left my camera at my son’s condo. (which he now considers HIS.) I’m probably not going to get it back until next week. I’ll post the pix then.
I couldn’t work out that fictional memory thing. I think my brain is missing a few neurons.
Lynn
When snow is falling, it does seem is if sound and movement is muted somehow. I sometimes feel like I’m on a movie set and everything does seem kind of dreamy.
Though once the snow is done falling the reality of it isn’t as fun as it used to be when I was a kid. Maybe once my office moves and I stop driving to work and start taking public transportation I’ll like it better.
I like to watch snow fall when I’m inside and it’s warm, or I’m outside and I’m warm, and I don’t have to worry about streets that are frozen over or an aching back from shovelling the driveway, or my fingers and toes turning purple because I get cold so easily. And the snow here gets dirty so quick, with the smog from the inversions, and the exhaust from the tailpipes, and the rubber from the tires, and the dirt and the grime and the salt and sand from the roads. The mountains are always pretty though, all whitened and cleaned (as long as you’re looking at an angle from which you can’t see the ski trails cutting wide swaths through the pine stands).
I like your posts. Have you heard of Young Chicago Authors. Non-profit writing org for teens in Chicago. I’m a graduate from their program and currently in college. Been writing a lot recently and was just wondering if I could take you up on that offer about wonderful critiques. I think you have a good eye and would love to share my work with you. I’m currently working on something big. Something really big. You can get tastes of it on my xanga. and some other stuff too.
L.
Beautiful story, Truly. I love the randomness of daydreams, even if it leads you to envision a shriveled penis. When did prunes become dried plums? I was unaware of the switch. As for the snow… how lovely! I wish it would snow here, I do miss it a lot.
I love those big fat snow flakes. Thanks for putting that image in my head. And, thanks for helping me know that I’m not the only one who gets all daydreamy in the snow. I have to keep the blinds closed in my classroom when it snows, not to keep the kids on track, but to keep myself focused. The big fat ones are the best, watching them float, spin, move, dance, especially at night, against a dark sky, away from the city lights. I completely get your trips into your little Buffyverse also (I was a hufe fan of the show myself), but for me the snow brings about Star Wars fantasies. My little car, cruising down the dark country roads, in the snow, with the brights on and the heat crancked, becomes the Millinium Falcon streaking through the cosmos. Snow rocks. Until you have to step in it, shovel it, or it collects in the roads. Mixed emotions are great.