For a little over a year now, I have toiled under the oppressive yoke of H&R Block. No, there was never an actual yoke. And they weren’t… actively oppressive. And they did always work with me on my hours so I could attend classes and study for finals. Well, OK, it wasn’t really all that unreasonable in the end. But I toiled, darnit!
But in all seriousness, H&R Block was a black hole in which I risked losing myself. The promotions I would have gotten, had I stayed, would have been along the lines of a manager in a call center, and ten years later I would be making enough money to get by but not as much as I could have been; I also would be absolutely miserable at my job, and wondering why I never got out while I had the chance.
So you can imagine how happy I was to hear a recruiter from State Street utter the words “we have decided to offer you a position.”
Starting March 14th, I’ll be working in the Alternative Investments Taxation department for one of the largest holding company in the world. I’m going to be fairly low on the totem pole, and the work could almost be described as glorified data entry, but it is a job in my field, and the pay is substantially better than what I’m getting now. The pay is also regular, in that I don’t have to get my hours cut at the end of the tax season, or take a mandatory 8 weeks of unpaid leave. This means that, if in a couple of months I feel things are going well and the position is going to work out, I will be in a position to lease an apartment. The threat of being that 30-year old guy who lives with his parents is waning, and the future looks bright.
Saturday, February 19, 2011
Tuesday, February 8, 2011
I have seen my first play in 2011, and it was about women in corsets having orgasms at the doctor’s office.
In upstate New York in the near the end of the 19th century, humanity was on the brink of the industrial revolution. Edison and Tesla were still competing to see who would pioneer the pending renaissance. And doctors, filled with the kind hubris that comes from being an academic in an age of rapid technological advancement, were biting off substantially more than they could chew.
During this time, as medical science had yet to find its footing and was stumbling in the dark, frequently knocking things over. One of the catch-all diagnoses of the time- one that went less noticed what with all that outrageous lobotomy business looming just a few years down the road- was Hysteria, a condition that afflicted many women of the era. The symptoms were wide-ranging, and could be anything from excitability, depression, irritability, and pretty much any other end of the emotional spectrum. A common treatment for this was to induce a “paroxysm,” a series of convulsions that would allow excess fluid to drain from the womb, and permit the body and mind to regain their crucial balance. It was achieved through vaginal massage, usually administered on a weekly basis.
If the reader were to stop at this moment and scour the internet to appraise the accuracy of the above paragraph, that reader might find that, while generous artistic liberties may have been taken, it bares an unexpected resemblance to the truth.
To wit.
In the Next Room, or “The Vibrator Play,” is a story about a doctor of this time period, and the ministrations he renders upon those in his care. His cold and clinical demeanor run in stark contrast to the intimacy with which such an experience is meant to entail. For Dr. Givings, it is merely a medical procedure like any other. For his patients, it is a bizarre, frightening, painful necessity of which they find they cannot get enough.
The production was a brilliant historical satire. As one of the cast members put it, the play is a “period piece through a contemporary lens.” As ridiculous and outlandish as the proceedings are by modern standards, the setting of the play firmly roots them in their historical setting. It serves to drive home the point that for all the absurdity of it, these were real medical procedures performed on real women (and some men) by real licensed doctors.
The play itself is a sometimes subtle (but mostly not-so subtle) commentary on gender roles and our ability to embrace our sexuality both as individuals and as a society. But more than that, it is freaking hilarious. From the facial expressions to the comical yet disturbingly makes-sense dialogue to the comedy-of-errors through which Mrs. Givings discovers and experiments with the Device while her husband is at the Club, the play had me falling out of my seat laughing pretty much open to close.
The play did set humor aside, if only briefly, to make time for some very genuine commentary about our ability to allow ourselves to remain ignorant of those things with which we are uncomfortable. Sideplots of sexual self-discovery and love triangles abound and they make good use of the time the play spends on them, but most of them are ultimately relegated to an ancillary position, in favor of the comedy that makes the play so great. The second act does focus largely on the dichotomy between Mrs. Givings, who is gradually discovering all the emotions and desires that polite society has forced her to ignore, and Dr. Givings, who is so firmly rooted in reason and logic that he is unable to exhibit the emotion his wife can finally admit she needs. The play finally concludes with a very… progressive scene that has forever changed how I look at Snow Angels.
In upstate New York in the near the end of the 19th century, humanity was on the brink of the industrial revolution. Edison and Tesla were still competing to see who would pioneer the pending renaissance. And doctors, filled with the kind hubris that comes from being an academic in an age of rapid technological advancement, were biting off substantially more than they could chew.
During this time, as medical science had yet to find its footing and was stumbling in the dark, frequently knocking things over. One of the catch-all diagnoses of the time- one that went less noticed what with all that outrageous lobotomy business looming just a few years down the road- was Hysteria, a condition that afflicted many women of the era. The symptoms were wide-ranging, and could be anything from excitability, depression, irritability, and pretty much any other end of the emotional spectrum. A common treatment for this was to induce a “paroxysm,” a series of convulsions that would allow excess fluid to drain from the womb, and permit the body and mind to regain their crucial balance. It was achieved through vaginal massage, usually administered on a weekly basis.
If the reader were to stop at this moment and scour the internet to appraise the accuracy of the above paragraph, that reader might find that, while generous artistic liberties may have been taken, it bares an unexpected resemblance to the truth.
To wit.
In the Next Room, or “The Vibrator Play,” is a story about a doctor of this time period, and the ministrations he renders upon those in his care. His cold and clinical demeanor run in stark contrast to the intimacy with which such an experience is meant to entail. For Dr. Givings, it is merely a medical procedure like any other. For his patients, it is a bizarre, frightening, painful necessity of which they find they cannot get enough.
The production was a brilliant historical satire. As one of the cast members put it, the play is a “period piece through a contemporary lens.” As ridiculous and outlandish as the proceedings are by modern standards, the setting of the play firmly roots them in their historical setting. It serves to drive home the point that for all the absurdity of it, these were real medical procedures performed on real women (and some men) by real licensed doctors.
The play itself is a sometimes subtle (but mostly not-so subtle) commentary on gender roles and our ability to embrace our sexuality both as individuals and as a society. But more than that, it is freaking hilarious. From the facial expressions to the comical yet disturbingly makes-sense dialogue to the comedy-of-errors through which Mrs. Givings discovers and experiments with the Device while her husband is at the Club, the play had me falling out of my seat laughing pretty much open to close.
The play did set humor aside, if only briefly, to make time for some very genuine commentary about our ability to allow ourselves to remain ignorant of those things with which we are uncomfortable. Sideplots of sexual self-discovery and love triangles abound and they make good use of the time the play spends on them, but most of them are ultimately relegated to an ancillary position, in favor of the comedy that makes the play so great. The second act does focus largely on the dichotomy between Mrs. Givings, who is gradually discovering all the emotions and desires that polite society has forced her to ignore, and Dr. Givings, who is so firmly rooted in reason and logic that he is unable to exhibit the emotion his wife can finally admit she needs. The play finally concludes with a very… progressive scene that has forever changed how I look at Snow Angels.
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