See, the house is old. Not old enough to be declared a historical landmark, but old enough to be old and creepy. It's quite large and the layout is unlike anything I'd seen before I met my housemates. Everyone that comes to the house loves the place; I think it has character. It's a cool house with a lot of potential. We're too poor to make the potential into reality, but that's another subject all together. There are doors that don't open for unknown reasons, leaks in the roof that no roofer in southeast Michigan can fix, plumbing problems that refuse to go away, cubby holes in the upstairs bedrooms, and hidden staircases. Once we found pre-Civil War Southern paper money in the attic. The house has history, that's for sure.

Strange things have always happened in the house. There are several stories involving several different people, not just those of us that live there. My friend Kelly actually saw Scott's grandfather (it was his house before he died and left it to Scott). Things have moved. People tell me they can't sleep there because they constantly feel like someone is watching them. My cat was locked in the bathroom. The radio turned on. The stories go on and on. Pretty much everything has happened to people that already believe in spirits and the after life until now.

The lights in my bedroom haven't worked at all in about six months. We couldn't figure out why, which is no surprise in that house, so I just learned to live without them. It was annoying but I am young and can adapt. My housemates, Scott and Amy, were going to visit Amy's sister in Florida about two weeks ago. They were to be gone a week. They were leaving on Friday afternoon and returning the following Friday night or Saturday morning. I was going to be in the big scary house all alone. I was nervous, but I was going to deal.

The Friday they were leaving, I was laying in bed thinking about getting up to go to work. I was working the late shift that day and didn't have to be in until 11am. It was about nine, if memory serves, when all of the sudden my lights turned on. They hadn't worked AT ALL in six months, and here they were a'blazin. I ran upstairs and dragged Amy down to my room to be witness and to confirm that I am not crazy. She and Scott were running late, but she came anyway and saw that the lights were on. "Yeah cool now you have lights okay I have to go I'm running late see you in a week" was pretty much all she said. I, however, was dumbfounded. This was perfect timing because I was going to be alone for the next week and man oh man am I scared of the dark. Lights in my bedroom would comfort me at least a little bit. Great. Fantastic. This house is so weird.

The lights worked constantly for the next week. I know they were working because I have a ceiling fan and it was on all the time. The Friday night that everyone was scheduled to return (or so I thought) the lights went out again. I somehow knew to go check the lights, even though I was watching TV. I went into the bedroom and flicked the switch, but nothing happened. I damned the electricity and went back into the living room. I thought to myself how odd it was that the lights were on for just that week while I was alone. I called Zuba and told her. She was instantly convinced that it was a spirit or angel or something trying to comfort me while I was alone. Interesting thought, but I wasn't convinced.

Wednesday night of this week (four days after everyone returned from Florida) Amy's brother-in-law came over to visit. He loves hockey and the WWF and beer. He plays euchre ruthlessly and makes smartass comments at every possible moment...a man's manly man, if you will. He's also a licensed electrician. The guy fixes this stuff for a living. I conned him into taking a look at my room. I just told him that the lights were unpredictable; they would work and then not work for no apparent reason. He spent nearly two and a half hours tracking down every plug, switch, wire, and whip in the room. He changed every fuse, reset all of the breakers and a lot of things I had no idea what he meant. I just sat back on my computer and let him do his thing. Finally he said, "Alright...this can't be right but I'll try it anyway" and opened the plug behind my TV in the living room. This plug is on the wall leading into my bedroom. He popped it open and stood up and looked at it. He lit a cigarette. He looked at me with huge eyes. "What? What is it man? Tell me!" I said over and again. He stumbled to get his words out. He said, "Erica, that room should never have had electricity at all. The wires that feed that room are completely capped off. Look!" He showed me how the wires that had caps on them led into my room and showed me how that wire fed the plug which fed the switch which fed...well you get the picture. He was absolutely stunned. The guy could barely speak. Every hair on his arms was standing up and he was pacing back and forth asking me again and again, "You're sure those lights worked. They worked. Really? They couldn't have worked, Erica...they don't have any electricity going to them." Finally he said, "Well, they could be backfed from somewhere else...let me check." He proceeded to do a bunch of tests and opened every switch in my room. To be honest, I don't know exactly what he was doing. I just kept hearing him damn everything and test everything three times. I smiled because I knew that Zuba was right all along. Someone comforted me by making sure my lights worked. Finally, the electrician (also named Scott) comes out of my bedroom and tells me that he never believed in God or spirits or any sort of after life before, but he is 100% convinced that something turned my lights on and it wasn't the electricity from the house. He said, "I never believed in God until today, and now I'm starting to doubt everything."

To my left is a series of large picture windows
I can see out but no one can see in
The tiny courtyard below is spotted
with a couple of trees that won’t get too big
and overpower the picnic table or create any shade
for the noon day diners to enjoy.

I sit in my sterile cube
the few ‘personal items’ I have in my space
offer me no relief from the low tambered murmur
of technology and infrastructure service
and megabytes and ringing telephones
and courtesy copies
and backslash dot com
hell I am stuck in.
My brain begins to move at the click click speed
of my neighbor’s typing
and I mesmerize myself so I’ll survive the afternoon
yet again
and I let my eyes lose their focus
and concentrate on listening to my blood flow through my veins
so I don’t lose myself in this afternoon
hang on my phone is ringing…

My days here consist of revisions
and memos
and correspondence between teams
and policies and procedures
and suggestions that don’t go anywhere
and ACRONYMS for EVERYTHING.
Yesterday I had a conference call.
People from TPD and MM were involved
and we discussed P&P regarding handling
faxes and requests from XTERM customers.
Should ACQ take the lead and make it an action item?
or should we designate an SPOC?

I don’t want to decide.

People in this country (sorry...being oh so America-centric again) can hardly fathom that sort of life. Why? Because we believe we can do better. We have far much more to do with our little fucked up lives than to walk the earth and learn about people and ourselves and God and our human fragility. We would much rather have unfulfilling jobs that require us to give up our bodies for 40+ hours a week cause...ya know...that's a whole lot of fun. Americans would rather drive their SUVs to little Johnny's soccer practice than spend some quality time alone with themselves. Why are we so afraid to be alone? Why are we so afraid to ask ourselves the hard questions...the questions that don't really have answers and if they do they're certainly not set in stone? Why do I get so pissed off when I don't have five offers to go out every weekend? I've figured out why.

I am intimitely attached to my ego and I do not want to let go.

I have a hunger that eats away at my guts every day. It's a hunger that I need to be out doing something better with my life. I feel the need to be helping, doing, learning, experiencing, tasting, fucking, talking, listening, going, coming. Each morning I wake up and have a sort of salty taste in my mouth and I know I'm still here...still doing the same ol' same ol'. Still unfulfilled. Still unhappy. Still yearning.

I've come to the realization that all I'm yearning for is fuel to feed my ego.

This life is such a contridiction. We're told from the time we're young that we can be whatever it is we want to be...and that we deserve the best...we have it inside and we just need to try. If someone takes all of that advice to heart and really believes in herself, she is an egomanic or stuck up or conceited. I'm just doing what you told me to do, you fucks. Thus, the term ego has become somewhat of a nasty word. If you're told to get your ego in check you know it's not meant to be a nice thing. We call girls stuck up when they have self confidence, yet a loser when they feel ugly. I'm not pretending that I'm making any new and wonderful statement when I say this world is full of contridictions; I've just come to realize how greatly these messages have affected me.

And so, here I am...prickled, roughed up ego and nowhere to turn. I do want to be better. I want to be the best I can be. I want to make a difference or a discovery or at least 75k a year. I'll probably do none of those things within this lifetime and that has me bruised. My ego is still hungry and I have no fresh meat to throw at it...hell there aren't even any scraps or slop these days.

I'm jaded; I'll admit that.

Would I be happier if the yell of my ego was quieted to a whisper? I doubt it. How could I be? This place that I live is not a place that is even the slightest bit supportive of someone that is complacent with living without things and without people and without money. My parents would be ashamed and frankly so would I.