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even more alienated from my species
Thursday, May 15 2025
Today in the brick-and-mortar workplace, the company hosted an unusual event called Quince de Mayo. Part of what made the event unusual was that the employees were catering it as a potluck, which I'd already discussed with one of my colleagues, someone, like me, with experience enough to know that that isn't how things typically work in a company. (Yesterday when I'd brought this up with the lunchroom court during the absence of its king, Ron the project manager had made some excuse for why this wasn't gauche.) I'd initially tried to ignore the event entirely, but then management sent one of the big guys from the factory to remind us software developers (people, like me, who'd been acting oblivious) that we'd yet to say what we were bringing. So I said something about bringing avocados, jalapeños and "surprisingly authentic" tostadas with exception "structural properties." I'd bought the tostadas at MyTown and most of the rest at Adams, though I hadn't done any prep work on them. With avocados, it's best to slice them up just before use, so today I brought a cutting board and a knife. I also brought a head of lettuce for that authentic 80s-style Mexican food treatment.
Quince de Mayo was held as an outdoor event under gloomy overcast skies starting at noon. Someone had set up a pair of tents with tables for us to eat at, and the food was all set out buffet-style. Most of it was horrendous meat-heavy stuff of course, although V, my colleague at SCA who also works at this company, had made Mexican street corn and had supposedly put vegan cheese on one of the ears for me. (In keeping with the way Mexican street corn always is, it was god-awful.) All the prep work I had to do with the stuff I'd brought meant that I was the last to sit down at a table and nobody partook of any of the food I'd brought. So I ended up mostly just eating my stuff with some not-very-good rice & beans. (I'd left the chili I'd brought upstairs at my desk.) Since I was the last person to sit down, I ended up sitting in the least-popular place to be, next to the accountant who happens to be deaf at a table that had all the company's women along with tree men (including me). The one major subject that I injected into the conversation was about all the porcupine encounters that my dogs have had and how expensive they have been.
The owner of the company is a woman about my age and she was sitting at my table, and at some point she brought up the fact that about ten years ago they'd had a developer working for the company who committed suicide by setting himself on fire. What? I needed to know more! Another story was about some guy caught walking down US 209 through Accord with parts of a human body in a suitcase. By this point I was drinking "virgin margaritas" that one of the software developers had prepared. They were pretty good and fulfilled the function of giving me something to do with one of my hands while I was talking even if it lacked alcohol. Despite this, I was feeling awkward in a way that is relatively rare for me these days.
At the end of the workday, I drove out onto US 209 just as a big pickup truck was barreling northward behind me. I was going over the 45 mph speed limit when he caught up to me, but he nevertheless did that thing where he drove up to within inches of my rear bumper, his enormous grill (what the fuck is wrong with the people who design trucks?) taking up my entire rearview mirror. I decided to ignore him, and he eventually disappeared after about a mile of this. But the experience was in keeping with the feeling I was having today of not really being simpatico with the rest of society.
That feeling continued when I stopped by the Hudson Valley Seed Company at their newish farm on Airport Road. Gretchen had ordered a bunch of seedlings for getting our garden started, and all I had to do was pick them up. When I arrived there, it wasn't really clear what the protocol was, but eventually a nice young woman with obligatory tattoos had me follow her to the rack where customers' orders were waiting. I walked right into the building with her, but then she told me to wait outside, with a hint of the tone of a woman who, it seemed to me, is concerned that I might attempt to sexually assault her (not that I really know what that sounds like). So I dutifully stepped outside and waited, feeling even more alienated from my species. While I was at the seed company, I also bought six sacks of organic compost that cost over $80.
Back home in Hurley, eventually Gretchen went off to pilates and I took Charlotte on a very short walk up the Farm Road and then down the Chamomile to the Chamomile Wall, where I added more stones.
Later this evening, Gretchen and I watched Jeopardy! and a documentary video called Sweet Bobby: My Catfish Nightmare about the elaborate (and seemingly unmotivated) catfishing of a young Sikh woman using the identity of a man she knew. We'd heard a version of this same story as a podcast, but hadn't heard the whole thing.
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