Life is a metaphor

As a runner working in a law firm on the ninth floor of an office tower (I’ve kind of stopped saying ‘skyscraper’ because, while it sounds a million times cooler than ‘office tower,’ it also makes me feel like a six year old)—as a runner working on the ninth floor, I find myself using the elevator, a lot.  Like, ten to twelve times a day.  The (lazy) writer in me sees this as a metaphor, something about life has its ups and downs, maybe.

I do a lot of driving for my work, too.  Mile after country mile flies past my windshield, and with the windows down and the warm-but-not-hot breeze in my hair, life is good.  As I drive I often find myself writing in my head, always something clichéd like “the road as a metaphor for life” and then, oh yeah, “life is a highway.”

The truth, dear reader, is that I am feeling slightly put-upon by this blog.  I feel like everything I post on here has to be deep, or inspiring, or at the very least, beautiful.  I want the reader to walk away saying, “By Jove, that was positively smashing!  There goes a young lad truly making something of himself, pip pip!”  In my mind, a British reader is always a happy reader.

But some days, I don’t have anything insightful to say.  I don’t have any fresh twists on old life lessons to impart.  What I truly want to say is: 

My glorious fiancé just got a fantastic job working as an events coordinator at a conference center!  This job is perfect for her, ‘right up her alley,’ and I cannot wait to see her blow it out of the water.  She has a real job!!! 

So there.  I said it.  It’s my blog.  Come back tomorrow if you want to read something deep.
I’ll be here.

2011 Writer’s Market

“No reading books on company time,” my boss said, so my carefully-laid plans have fallen by the wayside today.  Perhaps books are too obvious an escape from reality, maybe it looked like I was having too much fun, but whatever the reason, I now find myself twiddling my thumbs and staring longingly at The Natural as it beckons, paperback cover bent slightly open, from the corner of my desk.

So, to distract myself from the forbidden fruit of novelized fiction (seriously, though, no reading books?), I turn to another book, sitting in my lap, a gift from one of the paralegals:

the 2011 Writer’s Market.   

The Market is an enormous collection of tips and leads for freelance writers looking for a place to sell their wares.  Each of its 1000+ pages is covered in listings, each publication displayed as an opportunity, with a handy little dollar-sign system to let you know how much you could potentially earn, should your offering be accepted.  This makes for fun comparisons—if you get published by “Yoga Journal:” four dollar signs! (big bucks!), while “Liver Health Today” has only two (can’t imagine that making good bathroom reading).  The “Queen’s Alumni Review” apparently pays you only in Canadian money, since instead of dollar signs they have a little maple leaf.

My first thought, flipping through this behemoth, is “Isn’t this a little archaic?”  After all, the Market looks and feels a bit like a phonebook, and we all know how useful those are nowadays.  I remember, of course, my writing professors telling me about how great a resource it was, but those were the same classes that taught changing typewriter ribbon like it was a marketable skill, so I’m not 100% on the usefulness of any of that information.

But as I continue to peruse, I have to admit, my interest is piqued.  Different publications start to jump out at me.  “Cigar Aficionado” is billed as a “Bimonthly magazine for affluent men,” (with four $!) and I think hey, I bet they could really use a good funny prose piece.  Sort of like Leaving Las Vegas, but with cigars instead of heavy hallucinogens.   “Cowboys and Indians Magazine” catches my eye, promising readers that are “educated, intelligent and well-read Western enthusiasts,” ensuring that “wit and humor are always welcome,” and I think hey, this might be a great place for an in-depth analysis of the influence of Sergio Leone’s Dollars trilogy on modern film. 

I’m not saying that I’ll go out and write the next Hemingway short story.  But the Writer’s Market has stirred within me something that has, for a brief while, lain dormant under the heavy snows of waiting tables and running legal documents.  I love to write, plain and simple, and perhaps it’s time I get back in the saddle again.

Rainy Day Filing

     I’m closing files at the law firm today.  Box after box makes its way across my desk, each packed to the brim with folders containing cases our attorneys are no longer working on.  It’s my job to sort these folders, log them individually into a database, and then haul the boxes into a large, wide-open room filled with boxes identical to the one I just filed.  Kind of like the ending of Raiders of the Lost Ark, now that I think about it.  What Spielberg didn’t show us was that behind the scenes at that vast warehouse, there is some dweeb in a shirt and tie penciling information in clipped, scrubbed language onto little filecards:  “Covenant, Ark of the; Inv. No. 100013421; Crate No. 41-9990.” 

 

     The slim files that I handle represent months, if not years, of the greatest traumas most people’s lives will experience.  Divorce:  “Hartford adv. Hartford, case no. FD-07-0010;” Injury:  “Jenkins v. Oklahoma Auto Fax, case no. CJ-11-6341;” Accident, fatal:  “Corrora v. Cris-Life, case no. CJ-10-7889.” 

 

     It would be easy to see this as a metaphor, to wax Ecclesiastical about the brevity of life, of the futility of our struggles and the ultimate meaninglessness of our suffering.  Even our worst pain will one day pass, will be labeled and be buried in a sea of like information.

 

     But on this rainy Friday afternoon, as I take a break from filing and look out over the sodden Tulsa landscape squatting sullenly below my skyscraper window, all I am really thinking is that I wish I were in bed right now, with my covers pulled up to my chin,
with some celestial clerk in a robe and tie penciling and filing my problems away.    

 

Expectations

He’d expected it to be more…
     More dramatic? More red-faced, litigation-bound business tycoons storming into offices and slamming palms on tables, more junior attorneys fistfighting in front of the elevators, more frantic sex on top of break room microwaves. More puns about taking “the bar exam.”
     More Boston Legal.
     Instead, it turned out working at a law firm was pretty boring. He woke up every morning at six thirty, put on the shirt and pants that he’d ironed the night before, and navigated the half-hour commute to his office building downtown. Once there, he would sit in front of his computer, coffee mug in hand, and watch youtube videos or check fantasy football stats until someone dropped a motion or petition on his desk that needed to be filed at the courthouse down the street, right next door to the headquarters of the local newspaper.
     Every once in a while, he would catch a glimpse of what he had hoped for—a senior partner working late at his desk, poring over an ever-expanding pile of pleas, or a huddle of worried-looking defendants wringing hands in the sound-proofed conference room—but mostly, he would sit, and file, and walk past the offices of the newspaper next door and every day wonder if,
     today,
     maybe he should just open the door and go inside.