Words of Danny O'Bigbelly My idea of a good time

Here’s how my typical workday begins.

I drive to a parking lot behind an unmarked, almost unlabeled building. It’s the sort of building people drive by all of the time, without even noticing that it’s there. It appears abandoned; all of the windows are shuttered.

The parking lot is filled with nondescript cars. None of them are painted bright colors, none are excessively sporty, but all are in good repair. None are new, and none are old. They have only the most bland and common decals and bumper stickers. None of these cars are worth a second glance. A moment after you’ve seen them, it’s hard to remember anything about them.

As I get out of the car, I often see young men wandering around the parking lot. Sometimes there is a woman or two, but usually it’s only men. I often see them, but not always. They move around the neighborhood according to some pattern that I don’t know. Sometimes they move around in groups of two or three, or sometimes there will just be one, standing in a fixed position. But they are never alone, even if they appear to be–they are always talking to someone else on the wireless headset that they always appear to be wearing.

As they walk, the men make notes on small pads, and sometimes I see them taking quick photos of the cars in the parking lot, the cars driving by, people walking by on the sidewalk, the other buildings in the area, the weather, and sometimes nothing at all.

Their activities have drawn the attention of passing motorists and pedestrians. The local police have been summoned several times, by people concerned about the odd behavior of these men, who wander around the area at all hours, muttering messages into their headphones, and wearing strange, bulky outfits that include odd-looking vests, even in warm weather. I’ve never witnessed one of the encounters with the police, but I know none of the men have ever been arrested, taken into custody, or even cited, and I doubt that any of the encounters ever show up on a police log.

The only entrance to the building is in the back, away from the street. There are other exits, but they’re difficult to see from the outside. As I walk to the entrance, I often pass some of the men. I know many of them by name, and they all seem to know exactly who I am, and sometimes we exchange pleasantries. All of them have college degrees, and many have advanced degrees of one sort or another. They are clean-cut and fit, but they always look a little tired.

I am aware of being monitored by several video cameras as I approach the building. It doesn’t bother me.

To get into the building, I have to use a magnetic cardkey. There is no receptionist. I hold my cardkey up to the door, a small light by the lock turns green, and the door is open for a few seconds. The door opens into a small foyer, and then there is another door like it. Behind the second door, there is a short hall, with rooms on either side. The first room after the second door is a large room, with a big table in it. This room is almost always occupied by a group of younger, less clean-cut men and women. They are usually playing cards, but I’ve also seen them playing monopoly. It’s clearly just a way to kill time. When they’re in the room, they have nothing to do until they’re summoned. Every once in a while, I’ll see them all leave the room together and head out the door. I don’t know how often this happens, because I don’t spend much time in the hall, and I don’t know where they go. Usually when I pass the room, they’re either playing cards, or else the cards are laid down on the table as if they had been interrupted in the middle of a game.

Farther down the hall, there are several doors. Most are unmarked. My work is behind one of them.

To open the door, I have to dial a combination. The door opens onto a small area. Inside the small area, I remove all of the electronic devices I carry and place them on a shelf. I remember to turn up the ringer on my cell phone to its highest volume, to increase the probability that I will be able to hear it, because I have to leave it on the shelf and can’t carry it with me.

On the other side of the small area is a second door. This one is heavier, and requires dialing two combinations, which are both different from the combination of the outer door. It usually takes me a few tries to open them–they’re tricky, and very sensitive to any variation in timing.

I open the inner door and enter a larger room. There is a small sheet of photographs hanging by the door–photos of everyone who has the codes to open the door. It is largely unnecessary at this point, at least for the people who work in the room, because everyone who works in the room knows everyone else. An unexpected visitor will provoke a rapid response.

I sit down at a desk (desks are not assigned, although more often than not I end up sitting at the same desk) and key in my combination in order to access my files. Everyone with access to the room knows the combination to the door, but I am the only person who knows this combination.

After I unlock my files, I still can’t access the current project information until I key in another, longer, trickier combination. Then I can access the latest information. I am ready to begin work.

And then I realize that I’ve left my lunch at home.

If this all sounds exciting, it’s merely because I’ve been disingenuous, and you’ve filled in the missing details in a way that makes them seem more interesting than they really are.

Here’s the truth.

The building I work in is inexpensive to rent. This appeals to my employer. It doesn’t bother me.

The parking lot is filled with cars owned by engineers. Engineers drive sensible, boring cars, for the most part. We don’t make statements with our cars, or other things we can buy. We make statements about ourselves by what we create.

The men wandering around the parking lot and the surrounding area are testing a new wireless communication system that involves voice and video. Most of them know me because I used to work on something related to that project. They do get visits from the police fairly regularly, because many of the things they do during testing can be interpreted in a suspicious manner.

The people who play cards in the conference room are interns. The project they are working on requires large numbers of people, but not all of the time. It’s somewhat sporadic and unpredictable, so they sit around and kill time until they are summoned to do whatever it is that they do for a few hours.

There is no number outside the door to the room where I work because the hall was recently painted and the numbers haven’t been put back up.

The room where I work is locked because the customer is concerned about the sensitivity of the data we are using and creating. It’s not some sort of top-secret bunker. This is a fairly ordinary set of safeguards for protecting sensitive personal info. Ditto with the keys protecting the data.

And I’ve been feeling guilty about leaving my lunch at home for years. I really should bring in my lunch more often. The cafeteria food is overpriced and not very healthy.

Facebook status messages are like haiku: limited in length, with a fixed format, and intended to capture the essence of the author’s feeling at a moment in time.

Remember, I wrote “like”. There’s a fleeting similarity.

Here are some of my favorites. I hope you’ll find them trite and annoying.

February 3, 2009: Friendship is a lot of work, can take a while to get started, can be sticky and slightly smelly in a yeasty way, and get cinnamon all over the place. Amish Friendship Bread, I mean. Ten days until the next batch rises enough, and we’ve eaten almost of half of this batch already…

February 6, 2009: Bigbelly Wife won the office superbowl raffle: the prize is a monster bag of chips, a big bag of doritos, a sack of pretzels and pile of pistachios, jars of salsa and queso dip, all of which we need like a hole in the head.

February 6, 2009: The saddest words of tongue or pen are simply this: how great would the Rolling Stones have been if they’d had the foresight to ditch Mick Jagger about thirty years ago?

February 9, 2009: My facebook home page has been involuntarily simplified. Am I supposed to be excited that I need to learn where everything is yet again? You know what would excite me more? If someone would simplify something about my life that IS ACTUALLY COMPLICATED AND IN NEED OF SIMPLIFICATION. I stand ready.

February 10, 2009: If I could play guitar, this is what it would look and hope to sound like: this guy sort of looks like me, he’s crackerjack on guitar, I love TMBG (esp this song), and I leave my clothes all over the floor too. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M4yRIHFibzY

February 12, 2009: 100 billion is approximately the number of galaxies in our light cone, the average number of stars in each galaxy, the number of people ever born, the number of neurons in each human brain, and the number of atoms in each neuron. And the number of times I’ve checked my email.

February 13, 2009: Every year around this time I am reminded of the joke about the man who checked out the book titled “How to Kiss” the day before Valentines Day, only to discover that it was a volume from an encyclopedia.

February 14, 2009: Happy Chinese New Year! OK, I’m going to get crap for calling it that, from my friends who are asian but not Chinese. But “Happy lunar new year for most people who celebrate the lunar new year, except the Jews, who do their own thing in the late summer for some reason” just doesn’t have the same ring to it.

February 15, 2009: Watching hockey on TV just doesn’t work. At least not on my TV. The damn puck is too small, camera angles keep changing, the crowd smells like my living room, and when I begin to assert that the goalie is actually a sieve, or that the ref has brought his lunch, my wife gives me the evil eye. What’s gotten into her?

February 17, 2009: Tuesday evening: snowplow stuck in front of the house; can’t get enough traction to make it up the hill. Assuming that I can chop a hole in the ice berm at the end of the driveway, I predict that the Wednesday morning commute will be a slice of the human experience.

February 17, 2009: Sometimes an angel whispers a secret in your ear and you suddenly recognize a deep truth that explains a mystery or a pattern in your life. I had a moment like that on Monday. Here’s the revelation: I’ll eat anything with crabmeat in it. (Yes, my angel has been phoning it in recently, but when she’s on her game she’s awesome.)

February 18, 2009: I think my iPod is bipolar. Listening to it in shuffle mode; it keeps going back and forth between Gloria Estefan and Nine Inch Nails.

February 18, 2009: That “Feed your senses” Friskies advertisement during the Olympics? Wow. I haven’t seen anything that psychedelic since college, if you know what I mean. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Q4JLsNtDsM

March 5, 2009: Today is going to be one of those weeks.

March 5, 2009: Why couldn’t Levi have written a book and Sarah Palin posed nude? (yes, I stole this)

March 7, 2009: There is a large earthworm living in the flowerpot with the asiatic lilies. He popped up for a look when I moved the pot yesterday, and then disappeared back into the soil. He’s easily a foot long. This raises many questions, such as how he survived being frozen all winter, and how he got into a flower pot in the first place.

March 8, 2009: This movie will make you cry bittersweet tears of why can’t Hollywood do anything like this? Oh, and the regular kind of tears as well. It’s a three-hanky. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=48ivIU6Szok

March 15, 2009: Money cannot buy a wet-vac, sump pump, drain pump, or hydraulic cement anywhere in Boston, as far as I can tell. The neighbors have loaned us their wet-vac, but if their basement starts to flood also, I’m sure they’ll want it back, and we’ll be hosed. I have some hydraulic cement. Anyone want to trade?

March 16, 2009: At breakfast this morning, my friend wore a green tie patterned with yellow octopi, tentacles flailing. Several people commented on his tie, thinking that it was a Saint Patrick’s Day thing, believing that each octopus was a shamrock. They felt that their trust had been betrayed when they saw the truth. But, then again, why would shamrocks be associated with the man who drove all the octopi out of Ireland?

March 16, 2009: Having my basement flooded and staying up through the night trying to bail, getting no sleep, and missing work, has given me a deeper appreciation for how safe and secure my life is compared to people in Haiti and Chile and elsewhere in the world where people put up with much worse things every day of their lives.

March 21, 2009: These “Tea Party” folks don’t know the first goddamn thing about parties. I’m certainly not inviting any of them to any of mine. They should just call themselves “Tea Hooligans” and be done with it. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/20/AR2010032002556.html

March 22, 2009: So, the US will soon have universal health care… we must beware. Look at what happened to Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Monaco, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Ukraine, the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand, Israel, India, Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea, Canada, and of course, the horror that is Costa Rica.

March 23, 2009: Quasi-paradise lost. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o_QePidL750

March 26, 2009: Goldfinch at the bird feeder shrugs the snow off its wings and thinks of August, golden fields of thistle, warm sun, and that bikini she used to wear before she had the kids, got cellulite, and started to feel self-conscious about her figure.

March 26, 2009: When I heard the news, for a moment I was as speechless as a deaf-mute holding a large load of freshly-folded laundry.

March 29, 2009: I guess I’m not too old for a sudden crush. Applegirl has it all: multiple iPhones, fingernails all the colors of my imagination, a gnarly ring, the coolest leggings and throw pillows, a great apartment, oodles of charm, good manners, and exquisite taste in music. Not to mention that she’s female and has hair and a smile like a Disney princess. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nzh2UygPwDU

March 30, 2009: There are birds on my birdfeeder right now. This is not an unusual event, in and of itself, but if you knew what the weather was here, you’d understand what I mean when I say that I am impressed with their tenacity.

March 30, 2009: I know that rain is believed to be the tears of god by some folk. If so, I’ll thank him for not getting all emo in my basement tonight.

March 31, 2009: 1981: I held the corsage in one hand and rang the doorbell with the other. Her older sister opened the door. “She’s not ready. There’s a problem with the dress,” she lilted. I heard the sounds of a sewing machine running and a woman fretting upstairs, where I had never been. “Would you like to play chess, or maybe cards?” she asked. “It wouldn’t be nice for me to leave you to wait alone, and we have plenty of time.”

April 2, 2009: It should go without saying that if you ever have a hand in choosing the name of a super-intelligent super-being intended to help protect and shape the destiny of your civilization, you shouldn’t suggest the name “Millions Knives”. It is the kind of mistake that can really come back to bite you in the ass. This is something every parent should know instinctively.

April 3, 2009: The axiom of choice is all you need to prove that I will never be a mathematician. http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/fetishes.png

April 3, 2009: Woke up on the wrong side of the bed. Yikes! You see, my wife likes sleeping in a particular position, which in turn defines where I may sleep, how we snuggle, etc. But there are women, perhaps, who sleep facing in the opposite direction. So when she wakes up and finds that I’m sleeping on the wrong side of the bed, facing the wrong way, draping the wrong arm around her, she suspects I’m dreaming of Someone Else.

April 4, 2009: Do I want an iPad? Or a Nook? Or a Kindle? Or should I be content with just the free Kindle reader for the mac, which turns my laptop into a big Kindle, more or less? Or are they all wastes of want? I don’t even know what to covet any more. The advertisers are NOT doing their job. I have no lust for young tech any more.

April 15, 2009: The good news: my daughters trounced all comers in the form of teams of trivianauts gathered from every corner of the globe and took home the grand prize. The bad news: the topic of the questions was Disney Movie Characters. Oh, and maybe they weren’t really trivianauts–they might also be described as fellow travelers with nothing better to do. Have I succeeded or failed spectacularly as a parent?

April 15, 2009: I’ve been reading the Jefferson Bible–the new testament edited by Thomas Jefferson to remove the miracles and Jesus being the son of God. Jesus comes across as a smart guy with sensible and useful ideas. The miracles get in the way and provide a cop-out. We can’t be King James’s Christ–we can’t do miracles. But someone can be like Jefferson’s Christ, if he or she follows his teachings.

April 22, 2009: We have returned. The flight was mostly uneventful. I hope the mysterious concatenation of flights that our luggage is taking will prove to be as uneventful, and bring them around to Boston before too many more suns set. I suppose that the local customs regarding the appropriate amount to tip the skycap may be different in Boston and Orlando.

April 22, 2009: Goodbye, to some of you. My new rule: if you show up on my wall as joining some group that prays for someone to die, or wishes someone would die, or in any other way expresses the idea that you wish for or shall take joy from the death of another person simply because you disagree with him or her, that is the last time you will appear on my wall. I don’t care who that someone is; that’s not the point.

April 23, 2009: I’m watching a movie over the network from Netflix on my Wii. The future is here, and it looks sort of like VHS.

April 24, 2009: Poor Cinnamon… He keeps losing weight, except for the growth on his leg, which keeps getting larger. He can’t move around very well because his leg doesn’t work any more. And yet, he seems to be in fine spirits and makes no complaint. I think he’s just hanging on because he knows that when he dies, his elderly brother Pepper will die of loneliness within a matter of days. Rats are extremely social animals.

April 25, 2009: There’s nothing like the sound of your garage door spring exploding to let you know that there are many, many chores to do around the house.

April 25, 2009: I don’t get this. In college I wore Levis size 32/34. Now I wear size 40/34. Why did they change the sizes? Nobody is going to believe that I’m eight inches taller than I was in college.

April 27, 2009: The other day I got some email from my class committee, reminding me that our 25th college reunion is coming up. The implication of this milestone finally hit me this morning: this means that I’ve been sleeping with the same teddy bear for almost 25 years!

April 28, 2009: The lyrics of this song are one syllable shorter than a haiku. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wTrNQCYh70Y

April 29, 2009: ˙ʍou ʇɥƃıɹ llǝʍ ƃuılǝǝɟ ʇou ɯ,ı

April 30, 2009: This morning Cinnamon has only one working paw. He still shows no sign of pain or fear, just frustration that he can’t pick up his food. The end can’t be far away.

April 30, 2009: It’s nice to know that the local Indian bistro has a sense of humor. The mild korma was sweet, with a hint of raisins. The medium korma immediately ate through the plate, the table, the floor, the basement floor, the crust of the earth, and is now approaching the core of earth. Whatever part of the core is not already molten will be shortly. I’m glad I didn’t order the hot or very hot. I could only finish half.

May 1, 2009: I hadn’t watched ‘A Clockwork Orange’ for perhaps twenty years until I watched it again last night. Amazing. The film looks like it could have been made today–it’s still flawless, fresh, and terrifying. Are there any living directors with the combination of Kubrik’s genius of vision, mastery of the medium, and the colossal balls of granite required to make a film like this?

May 2, 2009: The selection of Netflix movies that are available to be downloaded and played immediately versus those that must be mailed versus those that are not available at all baffle and annoy me.

May 4, 2009: Last night I thought of a hilarious and incredibly insightful status update and I made a mental note to post it first thing in the morning. Unfortunately, that’s all I remember about it now.

May 5, 2009: When I was in school, I won a mexican hat-dancing contest. Word. I still have the award. I admit that I probably would have lost horribly if there had been any Mexicans enrolled, or if my teacher hadn’t taken such pity on me. I can imagine her thoughts: “Poor little Danny; this is probably the nearest he’ll ever be to winning anything in his life. I’ll let him have this moment.”

May 10, 2009: Every week, when we clean out Cinnamon and Pepper’s cage, I consider that it might be the penultimate time we do so. Maybe this will be the week. Maybe not. They continue to amaze me with their endurance, but everything has a limit.

May 10, 2009: Ironed the wrong bunch of shirts for this week. Gotta go back and do a few long-sleeved. Stupid weather.

May 11, 2009: I would like to know why there aren’t any songs like ‘The Waffle Stomp‘ on the radio any more.

May 12, 2009: Actual text of ad copy: “Since 1979, (company name omitted) has been producing quality (product name omitted) for over 21 years.” How should I read this? a) They’ve been producing it since 1958 and it’s a math puzzle. b) They haven’t updated their copy in ten years c) Previous, plus they never proofread it. d) Previous, plus viva la passive voice! e) Previous, plus people are going to buy it anyway.

May 13, 2009: Is Arizona doing this just to piss me off? It’s working. I mean, c’mon! They wouldn’t have permitted my high school English teacher–a man with literary awards stacked to the rafters–teach me poetry just because he’s from Vermont? http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/04/30/arizona-ethnic-studies-cl_n_558731.html

May 14, 2009: So… facebook thinks I’m gay, again. It’s showing me ads for things that don’t really match my interests. This is probably because some of y’all have such interests, and facebook doesn’t grok that it’s not a dating site, or that I really don’t care what or with whom you do with your privates in private. Facebook does.

May 19, 2009: Few songs capture my mood this morning. Here’s one that doesn’t: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gfLD-7bCtME