Thursday, May 08, 2003
Tuesday night I got home
Tuesday night I got home a bit late, just in time to watch one of my few prime-time addictions, @$ (that’s “24” written in upper-case). It’s overwrought and unbelieveable but I enjoy the hell out of it. How can Jack Bauer possibly survive death and drug-induced suffocation, still able to outfight and outshoot army special forces renegades and the former first lady - without a single meal or bathroom break for a whole day? Tune in next week! However, I realized one thing that disturbed me while watching the last episode: the turncoat Chief of Staff, Mike Novak, looks and sounds a lot like a consultant we have hired at work to help us with a major legislative report. Yesterday I had a long phone conference with him and an academic at the Judicial Council, and the whole time I just wanted to demand of him, how could you be so duplicitous? Whose pocket are you hiding in? Who’s the puppetmaster, you faithless wanker? For gods sake, he let Ensign Roe get critically injured; regardless that she hasn’t played that part in 10 years, old flames still flicker and some things can’t be forgiven…
At any rate the whole thing made me very uncomfortable while I was watching the show. As a result, I found myself engaged in a compulsive activity, perhaps as a means of sublimating my tension: eating fortune cookies. I’d picked up a cheap greasy meal at the second-to-closest chinese restaurant (the closest one give me the willies (stir fried)), and they’d given me a whole take-out carton of cookies. By the time @$ was over, I’d plowed through them all - without reading a single fortune. At first I thought this would make me extremely fortunate, but on further reflection I realized that these fortunes were cleverly written so that only those cursed with tragic genius would realize how little real fortune they bore.
In order of my having received them (though I wasn’t reading them, I stacked them neatly in order as I opened them), here are my fortunes and their esoteric meanings:
Watch your relations with other people carefully, be reserved. Okay that’s smart, my relations can’t be trusted with me, much less with other people. I’d better set up a place for them to eat in advance. Good advice.
The philosophy of one generation is the common sense of the next. Sadly, my generation is the one that blows them both off to try to replicate the ‘’flaming golf cart” prank from Jackass.
You have a quiet and unobtrusive nature. But I hide it behind a blaring and garrish persona. Ironic, eh?
Life to you is a dashing and bold adventure. This sounds more like a laundry detergent ad than anything else. And in fact, my life is very much like laundry - first stiff and formal, then stylish and attractive, then wrinkled and soiled, then stinky and ignored, and finally passed off on someone else to clean up the mess.
Cooperate with those who have both knowhow and integrity. If you can find them. And they share your goals and can stand to put up with you. Otherwise go with the folks with the enormous bankroll and diplomatic immunity. Or supermodels.
Serious trouble will bypass you. Sounds like my heart surgery isn’t going to go so well.
Consolidate rather than expand business projects in the near future. Okay, then can I expand my other stuff? Too much consolidation is going to cramp more than just my style.
A good time to start something new. Not complete sentence. Partial fortune confuses. Perhaps good time finish grammar workbook.
The world is always ready to receive talent with open arms. And, alternatively, to kick my no-talent butt to the curb.
You will enjoy financial security, domestic peace, and good health. In the meantime, I guess I’ll continue to endure penury, strife and infirmity. At least I have something to look forward to.
You will be surrounded by luxury. Unfortunately, in it I will be an island of deprivation. But the view will be nice.
A friend asks only for your time not your money. 03 07 11 18 24 40 This replaces the “time is money” fortune. They’re daring me to win Lotto and see what my friends ask of me. It may turn out that they ask for my time but just take my money. Or they’ll take up so much time I pay them to leave. My friends are pretty clever.
You are a practical person with your feet on the ground. However, as soon as I lift one foot I’m Don Quixote on a three-day bender. Or maybe they left out a few letters - I’m practically a person. Hell, at least I came close - that’s better than a lot of folks out there.
You will receive some high prize or award. Like a stoned Oscar, or a Grammy all strung out on goofballs. They’re going to have to start drugtesting the awards now. “Dude, I represent your outstanding achievement in ... um… man, is that tuxedo vibrating? I can taste the colors!
There’s only so much fortune, good or bad, a guy can take. That’s when you have to start relying on your own devices, and let fate play you like the knave you are. Since getting all these fortunes I have not yet been able to apply a single one to my own life. I am starting to think that the most accurate advice I got was written on the carton in which my cookies were packaged: “Contents may be Hot/Inspected by Olga A.” That Olga is hot stuff, all right. Close cover before striking.
