Bits and Pieces

So I'm adding in at the beginning, and at the end of what I currently have written, but here's a bit of it:

The Life and Impending Death of Simon Frank by Valerie Brown Pre Chapter 1 At 5 years old Simon was bitten by the neighbor’s dog. At six an allergic reaction to a bee sting landed him in the hospital. On his 7th birthday Simon’s parents took him to the circus where he cried the entire time and when his father jokingly waved his hand in front of the lion’s cage he peed his pants. He never went to the circus again. Simon’s parents were normal, loving, well adjusted people, who did their best raising Simon and his older sister. They tried to expose their children to the world, and their children learned about art, science, nature, and many different cultures, countries and languages through the best educational films the local library could provide…and an occasional field trip. Chapter 1 Simon sits at a desk, picking at a bit of a hangnail. His thoughts run over the possible infections that could occur and he pictures his finger black and disfigured, and then his hand with a missing digit and a small stump with scar tissue covering it. He rubs the offending finger, picturing increased blood flow and a flood of white blood cells rushing in to fight. Standing up and walking to the bathroom he quickly pulls out a box of first aid supplies and proceeds to carefully trim the hangnail, apply an antibacterial ointment, and expertly apply a Band-Aid to his finger. He returns to his desk with a resigned air. Simon sits at his desk and stares at the screen. He runs his uninjured hand through a mess of light brown curls that haphazardly cover his head. He stops about halfway along his head and unconsciously traces the various bumps and irregularities of the surface of his head. He doesn’t know that he does this anymore, and probably couldn’t tell you when he started…. Wait, that’s not true. He could tell you exactly when he started, it was while he was reading a book on phrenology that said that one could tell about various strengths and weaknesses in the human system by the various bumps on one’s head. That was what lead him to seeking a specialist to make sure his liver was functioning properly, which would have been about 1992. The same year that he turned 21 and began actively working with lobbyists to install breathalyzers in all car engine ignition systems to help cut down on drunk drivers. The same year that he first fell in love, and first had his heart broken. Simon stares at the screen of his computer and scrolls through the online job listings. It would help if he had some idea of what he wanted to do, rather than just what he is unwilling to do, but he feels he needs a change and despite 8 years experience in computer and website design, he thinks longingly of a career that will have greater social interaction, and imagines a cordial work environment with “team” of interesting co-workers that would go out for drinks after work and would share gossip over coffee in the afternoon. Simon’s never had a team, or a group, or a crowd to call his own. A couple of friends, loosely strung over the years have filled his life with minimal social contact, and although he has worked at offices, he has never formed friendships with co-workers or been part of a crowd. After sending off his résumé to a couple of listings Simon heads over to another site to check his email. There are a couple of emails from recruiters that he quickly deletes, and then there are the daily journals he subscribes to: The NY Times, [insert more here] He scans these quickly, taking in headlines and reading a few lines into some of the stories. He looks through his junk mailbox and seeing nothing of interest deletes them all. He checks his regular mail again and, not seeing what he’s looking for, closes the window. He opens a new window and, pulling down his favorite’s menu, clicks on an online dating site. It’s Friday already, and Simon knows that the possibility of meeting someone new over the weekend is slim. He goes through his welcome page and sees that no one has responded to any of his showings of interest, or his emails. He does a search, and reads a few profiles. Lil’Lovely- 29, 5’2”, average weight. Looking for someone who can make her laugh, who won’t treat her like a princess, but will respect her as an equal. Is equally comfortable in swanky attire, or blue jeans and a baseball cap. Likes to run, and would love a running partner. Looking for someone honest, caring, and romantic, with a bit of intrigue and passion for something in life. Simon checks a “send a note you’re interested” box. FunPrincess- 32, 5’5”, slim. Wants someone who will be her best friend. Enjoys going out, but is sick of the bar/pick-up scene and wants to meet someone “real”. Likes baseball and football and can hang out like “one of the guys”. Doesn’t know what to say in these online profiles, but knows she wants someone who is fun-loving and laid back (no baggage). Sorry, but must have picture or no response. Simon deletes her from future searches. He does this in the same way as he balances his checking account; with some smug satisfaction, erroneously feeling as if this will make him more effective at reaching his goals quickly. He goes through a few more profiles, sends a couple more notes of interest, blocks a few more users and then closes the browser. Simon stands up and walks across the room. It’s not a large room, and it is sparsely furnished. The pale, sage green walls soak up much of the warmth of the overhead light, and the tautly pulled stark white sheets and the comforter on the bed reflect the green-tones crisply. Grayish light streams through the two large windows along the wall to the left of the bed and a light Birch wood dresser sits between them. Another matching dresser mirrors this one on the opposite wall and coordinated nightstands hold small lamps that are now turned off on each side of a birch headboard. Simon is looking at himself in a long mirror that hangs on the wall beside one of the windows. He’s an average looking man, or maybe slightly above average when looking at the whole of the population and not just the mostly white, upper/middle class people with whom he is generally surrounded. He is 6’1 and in fairly good shape. He works out regularly and eats a fairly healthy, mostly organic diet. His hair is cut in an average way, and the pale dress shirt that he wears over a pair of jeans and black loafers are all strikingly average as well. He wonders casually if a stylish haircut and some new clothes might help him socially, but then, picturing it, realizes he would feel and look even more awkward in today’s current, trendy, metrosexual clothing, and highly product-laden hair; he smiles broadly thinking of it, and his face shows the few wrinkles of age starting to show around his mouth and eyes. He looks at the wrinkles with a little awe. They seem handsome to him, and he feels they give him an air of dignity, or the distinguished look of a college professor, or some such thing. He smiles again and views his perfect straight teeth and newly wrinkling face with a comfortable pleasure. Simon picks up a small digital camera he has sitting alongside his computer and takes a couple of pictures of himself. Nothing fancy, just some headshots of what he looks like today. He imagines briefly these images flashing across a television screen while a reporter reads professionally from a teleprompter “Simon Frank, shown here as he was seen just days ago…” He sets down the camera in its dock and allows the digital seepage of information from one machine to another to flow completely before removing the camera and putting it in his back pocket. Every other morning Simon does a hundred sit-ups, forty push-ups, and runs 1.4 miles on a treadmill that pulls out of his closet. Today is not one of those mornings. Today Simon does laundry, waters his plants, and inspects his body for any irregular moles or bumps before heading off to prepare breakfast. Simon sits upright with his placemat and food neatly before him as he slowly and carefully eats his daily morning regime. Breakfast consists of some carefully washed and peeled organic fruits and a bowl of oatmeal. Two large glasses of water and a small handful of vitamins accompany the food. If he’s feeling particularly adventurous or bored, Simon will break all routine and go down the block and get a croissant and a cup of tea. But this usually makes him feel weird for the rest of the day, so he generally avoids it. After finishing his breakfast this particular morning he rinses his plates and places them in an industrial quality dishwasher where they will be bombarded with a soap/iodine solution and steaming hot water for approximately 8 minutes. Simon will not stay to enjoy this disinfecting today as he might on other days. Today Simon has an interview. Chapter 2 “So what makes you want to be a Census Estimator, Mr. Frank?” “Well I’m great with numbers and statistics, and I’m actually quite fascinated with the statistics of human populations, their lives, and their deaths.” The interviewer looks a bit skeptical, or perhaps a bit concerned at this response, but he goes on: “And how does your work experience prepare you for this position?” “Well, my current job may not look like a perfect match for this position, but I’ve written several programs to help analyze data, and have done a lot of outside research work that would apply. I can show you some of the work I’ve done analyzing the most common deaths in the home, or a report I submitted on why the number of animal attacks resulting in death are skewed by autopsy reports.” He dug through his briefcase and withdrew a large manila folder. He slid it across the table to the interviewer—who looked at the folder and placed his hand on it, but did not open it. …………………….. Simon leaves the interview knowing he won’t be hearing back. Government jobs all require drug testing, and despite his offer to pay for hair strand testing they still insisted on urine or blood and found his resistance to submitting these materials rather suspect. Apparently they were unconcerned with the hazards of handling these materials and the possible health risks. He shrugged it off as more ignorant people he’d rather not work with anyhow and headed home to do the work for which he was already getting paid. Simon felt no guilt over doing other things during the hours in which he was being paid. Being that he could finish the work given him for the day within a couple of hours he felt there was no reason to be tied to his desk all day, and often took time during the day to do other activities. Letting him work from home meant a lot of saved money for the company, and he thought of himself as a contractor, getting paid to do certain tasks, rather than the hourly employee he actually was. Nonetheless he always made sure to be home for at least 4 hours of the day doing some type of work on his computer. Today Simon spent an hour and a half searching the web for reports of terrorist attacks, executions, and reading stories on corrupt government. Each story he read he saved and added to a catalog index and then entered statistics onto a spreadsheet. He knew this information was highly fallible, and was working on formulas to calculate the degree of error/fallibility for news reports based on country of origin and number of different news sources reporting. After collecting the daily news information he reformatted 8 web pages and wrote code for a few new pages that were to be put up in the coming weeks. The information his office sent him was always brief and lacking in some of the essential details of what they wanted done, so he would do two or three versions and send them back with questions as to which one was what they were looking for. He found this far easier than actually calling and talking to someone, who inevitably would not even know what they wanted. They generally assumed the work he did took the majority of the day and would often give him overtime when asking for additional changes to be made. Although the situation was comfortable and he made good money, Simon felt that his talents could be more useful in other pursuits and pictured himself in a job where he was admired and respected for these talents. Simon’s talents generally amounted to a near photographic memory when it came to statistics and numbers, and an ability to compare stats and come up with a reasonable comparison theories based on them fairly quickly. Unfortunately he had thus far been unsuccessful at parlaying said skills into a career; this was largely due to the fact that he was quite clueless socially, and quite unaware of that cluelessness. Knowing which careers these skills were applicable to might have helped as well. Chapter 3 Friday night means pizza, beer, pool halls, and hitting on women in smoke filled bars to good portion of men in Simon’s particular demographic, but to Simon it means just one thing: Scrabble. He has attended the weekly board game group at the local YMCA for just over 5 years, and rarely misses a single session. The group is made up of men from 22 to 70 a few of their wives, and some older women from 55-74. Usually 10-15 people show up of a pool of about 45 total. Simon knows just about everyone’s names, their professions, and their favorite letters to play. Over the games people casually discuss work, life, school, relationships and politics. Occasionally one of the regulars will find a girlfriend, or make some new friend who wants to go to bars on Friday nights and they will disappear, generally to come back in a number of months when the relationship dies, the bar scene gets depressing, or the friendship fizzles. On this particular Friday Simon enters at 10 minutes to seven, as he always does, and stashes his jacket in the coat closet, and proceeds towards the Game Room only to find the hallway filled with 20 and 30 year old men and women all changing their shoes, hugging, and chatting animatedly with each other. He looks around, puzzled, and then returns to the main hall and looks at the program board. The Scrabble Meet-up had been moved to the 2nd Floor Library, while Swing I was scheduled in the Game Room. Simon shrugged it off and proceeded to the second floor. Entering the Library he greeted a few people and sized up the competition at each of the four boards that were currently set out. Three people sat at two of the tables an 2 at a third, and the forth board was empty.

I'm remembering what a good procrastinator I can be and getting a lot of other work done outside of writing. Last night I did laundry, knit half of a scarf, watched television, and edited and posted 3 photos for Flickr. At least I know the month will be productive, even if the novel isn't! p.s. Yes I'm wavering between "Impending Death" and "Imminent Death" for the title. There's not a huge difference...but if you have thoughts, please share.