klsiegel320 (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
klsiegel320) wrote2004-03-12 01:31 pm
klsiegel320) wrote2004-03-12 01:31 pm
Out of Temper
So here I sit on Friday afternoon, with essentially nothing to do. There's some editing I expect to be doing sometime the afternoon, if the person I'm waiting on gets done reviewing and hands off his changes to add to mine. And I have been so tired and so bored for so long that I really no longer have much interest in doing even that miniscule bit of work.
Because it is miniscule, and it will not fill up the rest of the day until time to leave - and then there's this week's circus regarding "time to leave."
As previously mentioned, until the end of February I was sharing rides with a Canadian colleague. This was very congenial; we got along well; he was very punctual and whenever I needed the car, I pretty much had it. He left.
The day after he left, I was supposed to be fetched at 8:00 a.m. by the colleague with whom I'm now sharing rides. He was about twenty minutes late, on a rather cold day, because he had singularly failed to grasp the name of the apartment complex, and so had taken a tour of every complex in the general area looking for the right one. This is also - may I add - the complex he was to move into the following week. And when I tried to contact him, I learned that he has no cell phone, nor any intention of getting one.
I confess that his driving style scares me a little; we make a left turn with no stoplight onto a four-lane divided roadway to get to the office, and his habit is to get halfway across and then stop to see if it's safe. Except you can tell if there's nothing coming before you pull out, and if you stop in the median you're a sitting duck if anyone on either side decides you're going when you've decided to stop. Then he drives at some (apparently random) very slow speed in the lefthand lane, sort of wavering back and forth between crowding the right and crowding the shoulder. He shaves turns a little close to the curb. He's not really a bad driver; he's just not as skilled as I'm used to.
This is now the end of the second week of this arrangement. Last Friday, all was as usual - we left the office about 4:00, drove to the airport, I dropped him off, and came back to my apartment; I was back by a little after 5:00. He came in Monday night; I'd expected we'd meet up Tuesday morning, but he showed up on my doorstep at about 8:00 looking for the car keys because he had just gotten in and needed to go out for some things. No problem.
Yesterday (I think it was yesterday), I find out that this Friday his flight is at 8:00, not 6:00 as previous. But, he says, we'll leave about the same time as usual (4:00). I'm thinking this means basically I drop him off at the apartment, he gets a taxi to the airport. But no - he'd like me to take him to the airport at 6, which means it will be after 7:00 before I can call my evening my own.
Okay...I guess. But this really actually kind of annoys me, because I'd been going to make macaroni and cheese for dinner, which takes about an hour (from scratch baked, that is, as opposed to from a box); I'd been going to run a couple errands on the way back from the airport that now I can't do until tomorrow - and why in the hell can't I please at least have my damn Friday night to myself?!
See, I know this is because I'm tired and I haven't been feeling entirely well and it's that time of the month and...lots of and's. And I sort of set this up, really, because I allowed the precedent to be set that on weekends when I needed his car (that is, weekends when the Canadian and I were both in town), I went with him to the airport and drove the car back. There was no requirement that I do this; he could have handed over the keys, told me where to find the car, and taken a cab. But why make him take a cab if I'm done for the day and get to leave a bit early? Why not go for a nice evening drive (through Jacksonville rush hour traffic)?
Only now, when it's really rather inconvenient and I'd very much like to say, "Look, I'll drop you off early, or I'll drop you off at the apartment and you can take a cab; but I'm not ferrying you around town all evening. I have things to do." And reading it, I see that it would really actually be rather petty. I can drop him off at the apartment when we leave, and go run the errands I have to run; neither is life-and-death. Or I can decide to run one tonight and one tomorrow, and make the mac-n-cheese. Or I can decide to make the mac-n-cheese over the weekend.
Well, and there is one additional complication: one of the locals needs a ride home, for some reason - so in addition to having to leave early and so on, we also have to take her home on the way to the airport. Which I think means we're going to the airport early, which might answer the other annoyance...because I'm not game at all for taking her home (which is nearly to the airport), coming back to the apartment, and going out again to take RP to the airport. I mean, I'm a nice person, but I'm not a taxi service.
Sigh...I am so spoiled. I am so used to going where I want and doing what I want, when I'm at home, that I whine and complain when I'm even the least bit inconvenienced. This really isn't that big a deal; provided he's not expecting that we're going to dash back and forth from here to the colleague's home to the apartment to the airport, this should actually get me a more uninterrupted evening.
The other thing that alarms me is that I'm finding my colleague's speech pattern begins to really annoy me. My colleague and rideshare is Indian, and he's got a fairly heavy accent, plus a few oddnesses in his language usage and syntax and so on, all of which of course result from not speaking the language as a native.
And I begin to find his speech pattern irritating. I don't really know why, and that bothers me even more. It isn't really the accent itself, or at least I don't think it is. It's this peculiar rhythm in the pattern itself; it's a little like the 'hesitation' beat in a five-four measure in music. I don't think that's a result of accent. I suppose it might be related to one's native language, and the natural rhythm of that language, which might tend to get superimposed later on whatever other language one spoke...I don't know.
And I wonder if it's racism, and that bothers me most. I mean, I have had other colleagues - with a variety of American accents - whose speech patterns annoyed me, if I was exposed to them for too long. Why do I automatically cringe from the idea that this colleague's speech pattern annoys me, and assume that that reaction means I'm a racist?
Or is it just that it's change, and therefore annoying? Or that I'm tired and fighting a cold (I hope because the other alternative is that it's a sinus infection) and therefore I'm just grumpy? Or - as I suggested - because I'm just a spoiled brat?
I have no answers. I know that he's a fine person, he's good at what he does, he seems to be a nice guy. I do find him harder to "read" than my American colleagues, and that frustrates me. It's harder to differentiate mood, harder to tell what's under what he's saying, because the usual clues don't necessarily always apply.
Maybe that's what it is: I have to work harder at really "getting" who he is and where he's coming from, because I can't rely on the same kind of automatic clues I would get from an American or even Canadian or British colleague. The inflection is different, the particular rhythm and music of the language is different; so the clues I'm listening for are missing or hidden, and I have to expend energy to get at them.
Maybe that's what some of the prejudice is that we have toward the "other": we have to work too hard to understand. We're used to "getting it," and we don't like to have to stretch ourselves to "get it" in a new way. We are, after all, very much a nation of spoiled brats in many ways. Hmmm...interesting thoughts...
Not really. Just tired...I seem to be incapable of putting the damn book down, whatever the damn book is at the moment. I read straight through Barbara Cawthorne Crafton's Mass in Time of War; I'd intended to draw it out some, as Lent reading, but couldn't put it down. And I've been greedily snapping up romance novellas...well, and note that I'm finding them more irresistable the last couple days, and ordinarily I would be going home tonight for the weekend. I strongly suspect a connection there.
Although I have to say, I'm finding some of them very well-written indeed. The characterization is sharp and defined; the characters are real and three-dimensional. There's a particular sub-branch of fantasy romances - fantasy settings, modern-world settings with things like werewolves and vampires, stuff like that - that are kind of cool (when they're well done). And I do think part of this kick is the odd circumstances I'm in...I've never been this far from home for this long, since we've been married. So...sublimate, sublimate, sublimate!
Now if I could just find some source of good, old-fashioned hugs - real, solid, contact-with-other-humans hugs. I find myself absolutely starved for touch, for physical contact - which is made more difficult by the fact that I'm married and surrounded by handsome but married men. Maybe that's why the romances and particularly the novella that's simmering on the back burner of my writer's brain: more sublimation?!
Anyway...I've killed an hour or so drafting this; that's got to be some kind of progress. Guess I'll post and go see if there's any actual work to do, yet.
Because it is miniscule, and it will not fill up the rest of the day until time to leave - and then there's this week's circus regarding "time to leave."
As previously mentioned, until the end of February I was sharing rides with a Canadian colleague. This was very congenial; we got along well; he was very punctual and whenever I needed the car, I pretty much had it. He left.
The day after he left, I was supposed to be fetched at 8:00 a.m. by the colleague with whom I'm now sharing rides. He was about twenty minutes late, on a rather cold day, because he had singularly failed to grasp the name of the apartment complex, and so had taken a tour of every complex in the general area looking for the right one. This is also - may I add - the complex he was to move into the following week. And when I tried to contact him, I learned that he has no cell phone, nor any intention of getting one.
I confess that his driving style scares me a little; we make a left turn with no stoplight onto a four-lane divided roadway to get to the office, and his habit is to get halfway across and then stop to see if it's safe. Except you can tell if there's nothing coming before you pull out, and if you stop in the median you're a sitting duck if anyone on either side decides you're going when you've decided to stop. Then he drives at some (apparently random) very slow speed in the lefthand lane, sort of wavering back and forth between crowding the right and crowding the shoulder. He shaves turns a little close to the curb. He's not really a bad driver; he's just not as skilled as I'm used to.
This is now the end of the second week of this arrangement. Last Friday, all was as usual - we left the office about 4:00, drove to the airport, I dropped him off, and came back to my apartment; I was back by a little after 5:00. He came in Monday night; I'd expected we'd meet up Tuesday morning, but he showed up on my doorstep at about 8:00 looking for the car keys because he had just gotten in and needed to go out for some things. No problem.
Yesterday (I think it was yesterday), I find out that this Friday his flight is at 8:00, not 6:00 as previous. But, he says, we'll leave about the same time as usual (4:00). I'm thinking this means basically I drop him off at the apartment, he gets a taxi to the airport. But no - he'd like me to take him to the airport at 6, which means it will be after 7:00 before I can call my evening my own.
Okay...I guess. But this really actually kind of annoys me, because I'd been going to make macaroni and cheese for dinner, which takes about an hour (from scratch baked, that is, as opposed to from a box); I'd been going to run a couple errands on the way back from the airport that now I can't do until tomorrow - and why in the hell can't I please at least have my damn Friday night to myself?!
See, I know this is because I'm tired and I haven't been feeling entirely well and it's that time of the month and...lots of and's. And I sort of set this up, really, because I allowed the precedent to be set that on weekends when I needed his car (that is, weekends when the Canadian and I were both in town), I went with him to the airport and drove the car back. There was no requirement that I do this; he could have handed over the keys, told me where to find the car, and taken a cab. But why make him take a cab if I'm done for the day and get to leave a bit early? Why not go for a nice evening drive (through Jacksonville rush hour traffic)?
Only now, when it's really rather inconvenient and I'd very much like to say, "Look, I'll drop you off early, or I'll drop you off at the apartment and you can take a cab; but I'm not ferrying you around town all evening. I have things to do." And reading it, I see that it would really actually be rather petty. I can drop him off at the apartment when we leave, and go run the errands I have to run; neither is life-and-death. Or I can decide to run one tonight and one tomorrow, and make the mac-n-cheese. Or I can decide to make the mac-n-cheese over the weekend.
Well, and there is one additional complication: one of the locals needs a ride home, for some reason - so in addition to having to leave early and so on, we also have to take her home on the way to the airport. Which I think means we're going to the airport early, which might answer the other annoyance...because I'm not game at all for taking her home (which is nearly to the airport), coming back to the apartment, and going out again to take RP to the airport. I mean, I'm a nice person, but I'm not a taxi service.
Sigh...I am so spoiled. I am so used to going where I want and doing what I want, when I'm at home, that I whine and complain when I'm even the least bit inconvenienced. This really isn't that big a deal; provided he's not expecting that we're going to dash back and forth from here to the colleague's home to the apartment to the airport, this should actually get me a more uninterrupted evening.
The other thing that alarms me is that I'm finding my colleague's speech pattern begins to really annoy me. My colleague and rideshare is Indian, and he's got a fairly heavy accent, plus a few oddnesses in his language usage and syntax and so on, all of which of course result from not speaking the language as a native.
And I begin to find his speech pattern irritating. I don't really know why, and that bothers me even more. It isn't really the accent itself, or at least I don't think it is. It's this peculiar rhythm in the pattern itself; it's a little like the 'hesitation' beat in a five-four measure in music. I don't think that's a result of accent. I suppose it might be related to one's native language, and the natural rhythm of that language, which might tend to get superimposed later on whatever other language one spoke...I don't know.
And I wonder if it's racism, and that bothers me most. I mean, I have had other colleagues - with a variety of American accents - whose speech patterns annoyed me, if I was exposed to them for too long. Why do I automatically cringe from the idea that this colleague's speech pattern annoys me, and assume that that reaction means I'm a racist?
Or is it just that it's change, and therefore annoying? Or that I'm tired and fighting a cold (I hope because the other alternative is that it's a sinus infection) and therefore I'm just grumpy? Or - as I suggested - because I'm just a spoiled brat?
I have no answers. I know that he's a fine person, he's good at what he does, he seems to be a nice guy. I do find him harder to "read" than my American colleagues, and that frustrates me. It's harder to differentiate mood, harder to tell what's under what he's saying, because the usual clues don't necessarily always apply.
Maybe that's what it is: I have to work harder at really "getting" who he is and where he's coming from, because I can't rely on the same kind of automatic clues I would get from an American or even Canadian or British colleague. The inflection is different, the particular rhythm and music of the language is different; so the clues I'm listening for are missing or hidden, and I have to expend energy to get at them.
Maybe that's what some of the prejudice is that we have toward the "other": we have to work too hard to understand. We're used to "getting it," and we don't like to have to stretch ourselves to "get it" in a new way. We are, after all, very much a nation of spoiled brats in many ways. Hmmm...interesting thoughts...
Not really. Just tired...I seem to be incapable of putting the damn book down, whatever the damn book is at the moment. I read straight through Barbara Cawthorne Crafton's Mass in Time of War; I'd intended to draw it out some, as Lent reading, but couldn't put it down. And I've been greedily snapping up romance novellas...well, and note that I'm finding them more irresistable the last couple days, and ordinarily I would be going home tonight for the weekend. I strongly suspect a connection there.
Although I have to say, I'm finding some of them very well-written indeed. The characterization is sharp and defined; the characters are real and three-dimensional. There's a particular sub-branch of fantasy romances - fantasy settings, modern-world settings with things like werewolves and vampires, stuff like that - that are kind of cool (when they're well done). And I do think part of this kick is the odd circumstances I'm in...I've never been this far from home for this long, since we've been married. So...sublimate, sublimate, sublimate!
Now if I could just find some source of good, old-fashioned hugs - real, solid, contact-with-other-humans hugs. I find myself absolutely starved for touch, for physical contact - which is made more difficult by the fact that I'm married and surrounded by handsome but married men. Maybe that's why the romances and particularly the novella that's simmering on the back burner of my writer's brain: more sublimation?!
Anyway...I've killed an hour or so drafting this; that's got to be some kind of progress. Guess I'll post and go see if there's any actual work to do, yet.
ummm...
*hug*
Hope things get better....
Re: ummm...
My brain is apparently fried enough to forget two minutes later that I linked INTO an lj-cut to read that *lol*
Hope you have a good weekend!
Re: ummm...
Short answer: I could delete it, I suppose, but I don't see the need. Oh - I see what you're saying - you were proposing I use lj-cut to shorten the entry, when in fact that's what I'd already done...whereas I took it as a compliment on my use of lj-cut to put the long entry behind a cut...so...no harm, no foul.