(no subject)

I'm getting used to the new commute. I get the 5:51 train out of Kenosha, arriving at Ogilvie station at 7:30. From there I walk to the building I'm working in, which would have taken less time yesterday if I hadn't started out going the wrong direction. I'll probably get it right this time.

I left work about quarter to five to try to make the 5:05 train back north. Fortunately, I'd misremembered and it was a 5:10, which meant that I made it in time.

I largely napped on the way south yesterday, and read my three volume Fushigi Yugi compendium on the way back home. I seem to be having some trouble with Fushigi Yugi; It's a bit difficult to tell the characters apart. They look more similar to me than most manga characters do.

Speaking of such things, the place I'm sitting on Mondays and Tuesdays has me a little bit anxious. Those of us who are sharing a desk in this office are going to be rotating in and out of the one that's nearest the door to our office space. That means I'm going to be up front as people come with questions, and will probably be expected to recognize the people in the office. That's probably not going to happen. I'm going to wait and see how much of a problem this poses, but if it looks like it will be significant, I may finally have a talk with my manager to explain the issue. I don't know why that makes me so nervous, but it does.

The walk back to the station was kind of fun. I went with one of the other help desk guys on a bit of a shortcut route (which involved walking down a vehicle ramp in some other building's parking structure!). We also went by a very neat, out of service railroad draw bridge, now permanently raised up over the Chicago river. That bridge is now on my list of places to photograph; it's just beautiful! Maybe I'll stay 'til a later train some time and do some shutterbugging around Chicago.

The long day wiped me out yesterday. When I got home, I was exhausted. I microwaved a pizza (yes, we're having issues with our oven; fortunately posicat explained an alternate method of pizza preparation to me some time ago), watched an episode of Clone High with moiracoon, and and went to bed around 8:30. I'm still a little tired this morning, but no more so than when I usually get up at 6:30 or so.

And on the life-experience side of things, I'm really grateful to now be able to say that I've commuted to work by train. It's an experience that's really novel to me, and I'm happy to add it to my collection of life lived.

( Looking at the numbers )

The train's just getting into Waukegan. An added bonus to this method of commuting is the ability to read, write, or sleep on the way. I like that. I think I'll end my entry here and either catch up on other people's lives, or take another nap.

(no subject)

Today brought my first rainstorm witnessed from an upper floor of a major Chicago building. There's a metal plate in the ceiling of the room that we help desk folk are in that must be exposed to the elements above, because it only took a few moments of listening to that familiar, soothing, not-quite-static to know what was happening in the sky outside.

I dashed down to the end of the hallway outside the room where a door opens out into an expanse of roof overlooking the loop. Our office manager occupies a cubicle there too, so of course, I asked whether we are in possession of a key for that door. Regrettably, only building management has one, so I was unable to walk out onto the roof and stand under the open sky two hundred feet above the streets. I did spend a minute or so looking out over the plain of splashing puddles that suddenly ended in a precipitous drop that I would love the chance to look down from.

The office manage tells me that plans have been made and permits are being acquired for an outdoor deck to be placed outside the door; I can't wait to come down here with my camera and get some pictures from a rare vantage point.

I was introduced to one of our CEO's executive assistances today. Another tech was helping to fix an issue with software I'm not familiar with and I watched over his shoulder to see what he was doing. After the issue was fixed and I was turning to go, she called me back. I stopped and looked back and she smiled and made a motion with a pair of scissors. It took me a moment to realize she was implying that she wanted to cut my hair.

She asked whether I was growing it out to donate it. "Actually, I'm not" I said, to much laughter from those around. After I got back to my desk I joked about it with another tech there and began to think about it. About how much I could discern from that interaction about relative position and role and power. Hers was a gesture that reminded me very much of a disapproving mother (though my experience with such a thing is rare, it may be enough to know). Which means that, socially and professionally (And how different are those two things, really?), I'm considered below her. And of course, I am.

I like playing with various ways that that interaction would look and feel between people of different genders or power roles. Is it the unique combination of a powerful female and a weaker male that allowed it? Was it just an objection to my appearance, or is it an expression of superiority with a non-mainstream characteristic as a handy focus? Would would that interaction look like if she was male, or I female? What can you learn about how the social atmosphere of businesses is constructed from it?

Another social interaction outside my realm of experience came when another tech and I were talking the walk back to the train station. He related a story about how he and another employee were making the walk when his companion started to take a path through an alley. "Don't go that way," he said. "There are fags over there."

"You know I"m gay, right?" said the other employee.

My fellow tech said that he didn't realize and it was just a joke, and that the gay man 'was cool' and 'didn't take it personally'.

I don't know how to respond to that. On one hand, the tech seems like a nice guy who doesn't know any better. On the other hand, I just don't get how, in this day and age, you could not know better. How can you disassociate that sort of thing from any other, clearly offensive comments of that nature (like 'Don't go that way; there are black people over there' for instance).

I'd like to be helping people to know better. But I just don't trust my communication skills. I get tripped up over my own words just trying to answer simple questions half the time. And while saying 'Hey, I'm gay too and that's not really cool' would be relatively simple, I'm not. 'I'm married, and bisexual, and yes, my wife is completely okay with this 'cause she is too' opens up a whole can of worms that I don't think I can begin to explain in an office populated with the top company execs and a bunch of people I don't know in the slightest, and that's not even getting into the poly side of things which that line of conversation might just bring up. So I took the easy way out and let it go. I feel bad about that and I'm sorry.