{"id":8175,"date":"2011-05-13T13:31:16","date_gmt":"2011-05-13T17:31:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/?p=8175"},"modified":"2011-05-13T13:31:16","modified_gmt":"2011-05-13T17:31:16","slug":"the-gravity-of-the-everyday","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/2011\/05\/the-gravity-of-the-everyday\/","title":{"rendered":"The Gravity of the Everyday"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

[Photo, “What’s Important,” by Valerie Everett. Found on Flickr<\/a> and used under a Creative Commons license.]<\/em><\/p>\n

From whiskey river<\/em><\/a>:<\/p>\n

Why I Wake Early<\/strong><\/p>\n

Hello, sun in my face.
\nHello, you who made the morning
\nand spread it over the fields
\nand into the faces of the tulips
\nand the nodding morning glories,
\nand into the windows of, even, the
\nmiserable and the crotchety —<\/p>\n

best preacher that ever was,
\ndear star, that just happens
\nto be where you are in the universe
\nto keep us from ever-darkness,
\nto ease us with warm touching,
\nto hold us in the great hands of light —
\ngood morning, good morning, good morning.<\/p>\n

Watch, now, how I start the day
\nin happiness, in kindness.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Mary Oliver)<\/p>\n

…and<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Advice to Myself<\/strong><\/p>\n

Leave the dishes.
\nLet the celery rot in the bottom drawer of the refrigerator
\nand an earthen scum harden on the kitchen floor.
\nLeave the black crumbs in the bottom of the toaster.
\nThrow the cracked bowl out and don’t patch the cup.
\nDon’t patch anything. Don’t mend. Buy safety pins.
\nDon’t even sew on a button.
\nLet the wind have its way, then the earth
\nthat invades as dust and then the dead
\nfoaming up in gray rolls underneath the couch.
\nTalk to them. Tell them they are welcome.
\nDon’t keep all the pieces of the puzzles
\nor the doll’s tiny shoes in pairs, don’t worry
\nwho uses whose toothbrush or if anything
\nmatches, at all.
\nExcept one word to another. Or a thought.
\nPursue the authentic — decide first
\nwhat is authentic,
\nthen go after it with all your heart.
\nYour heart, that place
\nyou don’t even think of cleaning out.
\nThat closet stuffed with savage mementos.
\nDon’t sort the paper clips from screws from saved baby teeth
\nor worry if we’re all eating cereal for dinner
\nagain. Don’t answer the telephone, ever,
\nor weep over anything at all that breaks.
\nPink molds will grow within those sealed cartons
\nin the refrigerator. Accept new forms of life
\nand talk to the dead
\nwho drift in though the screened windows, who collect
\npatiently on the tops of food jars and books.
\nRecycle the mail, don’t read it, don’t read anything
\nexcept what destroys
\nthe insulation between yourself and your experience
\nor what pulls down or what strikes at or what shatters
\nthis ruse you call necessity.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Louise Erdrich, from Original Fire: Selected and New Poems<\/em>)<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Not from whiskey river<\/em>:<\/p>\n

I am waiting for my cappuccino, standing at the bar. Next to me, an attractive young woman with red hair and freckles, clearly a foreigner, has also ordered a cappuccino. Serving at the bar is a young man with curly dark hair. With an air of nonchalance, he places her cup down. It has a lovely froth, with a perfect creamy heart in the middle. I peek at her reaction and notice her surprise. She is not used to receiving a heart for breakfast. The barman says nothing, does not even look at her. Then my cappuccino arrives — no heart, just a banal cappuccino like any other. Simply a drink, no love message.<\/p>\n

I must admit a slight feeling of envy for those two. But that is not the point. What is<\/em> important lies in their interior, secret world.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Piero Ferrucci, The Power of Kindness<\/em> [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

…and then there are these classic moments from 1999’s Office Space<\/em><\/a>. Milton (Stephen Root) is a hapless clerk; Peter (Ron Livingston), a co-worker; and Bill Lumbergh (Gary Cole), their boss at a soulless corporation known as Initech.<\/p>\n

[Scene: Milton’s cubicle, under the banner. He’s on the phone with Peter.]<\/em><\/p>\n

[Below, click Play button to begin this excerpt from <\/em>Office Space. While audio is playing, volume control appears at left — a row of little vertical bars. This clip is 00:44 long.]<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

[audio:thatsgreatmilton.mp3|titles=’Excerpt from ‘Office Space”|artists=Stephen Root et al.]<\/div>\n

Milton:<\/strong> I– I said I don’t care if they lay me off, either. Because, I told — I told Bill that if they move my desk one more time then I’m — I’m quitting — I’m going to quit. And I told Dom too, because they’ve moved my desk four times already this year. And I used to be over by the window and I could see the squirrels and they were married. But then they switched from the Swingline to the Boston stapler. But I kept my Swingline stapler because it didn’t bind up as much and I kept the staples for the Swingline stapler.<\/p>\n

Peter:<\/strong> Okay, Milton.<\/p>\n

Milton:<\/strong> And, oh, no, it’s not okay because if they make me — if they — If they take my stapler then I’ll– I’ll have to — I’ll set the building on fire.<\/p>\n

Peter:<\/strong> Okay well, that sounds, uh, that sounds great. Uh, I’ll talk to you later, all right? Bye.<\/p>\n

[later]<\/em><\/p>\n

[Scene: Milton’s cubicle. He hears Bill talking and eavesdrops.]<\/em><\/p>\n

Bill:<\/strong> …stapler off my desk…<\/p>\n

[Milton puts his Swingline stapler somewhere else. The guys laugh.]<\/em><\/p>\n

Bill:<\/strong> …anyway, sounds great, Bob. I’ll see you in a few. [They walk off.]<\/em> Hey, Milton, what’s happening?<\/p>\n

Milton:<\/strong> Uh… sir…<\/p>\n

Bill:<\/strong> Uh, I’m going to have to ask you to move your desk. Now, if you could get it to go as far back against that wall as possible, that would be great.<\/p>\n

Milton:<\/strong> No, no, because I was, I was—<\/p>\n

Bill:<\/strong> That way, we’ll have some room for more boxes and things we need to put in here.<\/p>\n

Milton:<\/strong> No… sir…<\/p>\n

Bill:<\/strong> Uh— [sees the Swingline]<\/em> Oh, there it is.<\/p>\n

Milton:<\/strong> No. No.<\/p>\n

Bill: <\/strong>Let me just get that from ya. [Picks it up.]<\/em> Great. So if you could get to that as soon as possible, that would be terrific. Have a nice lunch, Milton. Bye.<\/p>\n

[He walks off.]<\/em><\/p>\n

Milton:<\/strong> Okay. I’ll set the building on fire.<\/p>\n

[later]<\/em><\/p>\n

[Scene: Milton’s cubicle. He’s organizing papers.]<\/em><\/p>\n

Milton:<\/strong> F… C… P…<\/p>\n

Bill:<\/strong> Hi, Milton. What’s going on?<\/p>\n

Milton:<\/strong> I, I, I, I, I didn’t receive my paycheck this week.<\/p>\n

Bill:<\/strong> Uh, you’re gonna have to talk to Payroll about that.<\/p>\n

Milton:<\/strong> I, I did and they, and they said—<\/p>\n

Bill:<\/strong> Uh, we’re gonna need to move your desk downstairs into Storage B.<\/p>\n

Milton:<\/strong> No…I…I…<\/p>\n

Bill: <\/strong>Uh, we have some new people coming in and we need all the space we can get.<\/p>\n

Milton: <\/strong>No…no…no…no…but…but…but…I, I, I—<\/p>\n

Bill:<\/strong> And if you could could go ahead and get a can of pesticide and take care of the roach problem we’ve been having that would be great. [He walks away.]<\/em><\/p>\n

Milton:<\/strong> I can’t… Excuse me. I believe you have my stapler?<\/p>\n

[later, and finally]<\/em><\/p>\n

[Scene: Initech. Morning. Milton is talking to an secretary. Lumbergh hasn’t gotten to work yet.]<\/em><\/p>\n

Milton:<\/strong> … to Mr. Lumbergh and he told me to talk to Payroll and then Payroll, they told me to talk to Mr. Lumbergh. And I still haven’t gotten my paycheck and they stole my stapler and they told me to move my desk to Storage Room B and there was garbage all over it and I don’t appreciate that.<\/p>\n

Secretary:<\/strong> Um, why don’t you go and sit at your desk. Mr. Lumbergh should be here any minute.<\/p>\n

Milton:<\/strong> Mr. Lumbergh—<\/p>\n

Secretary:<\/strong> Just go and sit at your desk.<\/p>\n

Milton:<\/strong> But—<\/p>\n

Secretary:<\/strong> Oh?<\/p>\n

Milton:<\/strong> Okay, I, I, I’m going to set the building on fire. I tell him, if I don’t get my stapler [the secretary leaves]<\/em> I’m going to have to get my stapler back because it is my stapler. [He goes into Mr. Lumbergh’s office]<\/em> It’s my stapler, the Swingline. It’s been mine for a very long time.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I’m amazed that no one has done a YouTube compilation of all these scenes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[Photo, “What’s Important,” by Valerie Everett. Found on Flickr and used under a Creative Commons license.] From whiskey river: Why I Wake Early Hello, sun in my face. Hello, you who made the morning and spread it over the fields and into the faces of the tulips and the nodding morning glories, and into the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","h5ap_radio_sources":[],"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":3,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[183,247,1393,53,250,251],"tags":[595,2360,2361,2362,2363,2364],"class_list":{"0":"post-8175","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-everyday-life","7":"category-ruminations","8":"category-whiskey-river-runningaftermyhat","9":"category-movies-media","10":"category-art","11":"category-poetry-writing_cat","12":"tag-mary-oliver","13":"tag-valerie-everett","14":"tag-louise-erdrich","15":"tag-piero-ferrucci","16":"tag-office-space","17":"tag-milton-waddams","18":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6kZSG-27R","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8175","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8175"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8175\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8176,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8175\/revisions\/8176"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8175"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8175"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8175"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}