Melancholy mail

So I was going to write this yesterday, as I was right in the middle of it all. But I was just too, I dunno, down.

See, I think today is the day that I'm going to get downsized at work. Yup, Walt Disney Television Animation doesn't need three script coordinators. This is fact - the VP of Production told me this in an e-mail on Monday. Now, I'm a hard workin' fella, and you'd think I'd be fine. But the thing is, I'm the one of the three who's been here the shortest time - one lady's been here twenty-something years, the other ten. So I'm screwed.

That's why I'm looking for jobs back over at Walt Disney Feature Animation. Six weeks of interviews, waiting, really messed up sleeping patterns, even more screwed up dreams, and then more waiting. Fun!

Anyway, I've taken it upon myself to clean out my desk and cube at work, so the transition will be easier. You amass a bunch of shit over fourteen months, it's amazing.

My desk did not take nearly as much time as my computer, however. I had over 2800 emails in my inbox and 3500 in my sent items folder. Damn.

So yesterday was e-mail day. Damn near took all day, too. I sorted through the bunch of them, amazed at the letters I found.

See, I'm a "keeper" - I save everything. Pack-rat, if you will. My desk at home is full of brochures from our Florida vacations in the mid-1980s. I have endless pencils and pens, notepads that I thought were too cool to use so I might as well save, newspaper articles, magazine articles, anything that might hold a smidgeon of emotional value.

That's part of the reason why I have six-thousand e-mails from fourteen months at a job.

It was a fun journey, however, to sort through them. I can see why Thomas Jefferson saved all of his correspondence. It paints an amazing portrait of my life the past year and a half. Letters to my cousin lamenting my lack of an apartment in January. A few (!) from Daniel, including some from the week last August when it looked like he was getting a weekend gig in LA storyboarding some animation (he wrote to me on Tuesday asking, "Can I come over on Friday?" 'Over' being three-thousand miles. Classic.) And then the women. I have scads to my old amigos at LEGO, Janice and Alexis, about various women in my life. Things about TVA Cute Girl #1 - like when she said that she was going on vacation. "Where?" I ask. "We're going to Hawaii." Dammit. Or when I found out TVA Cute Girl #2 smokes. Or when TVA Cute Girl #3 ... well, let's not talk about her.

A note to my friends about my new roommate, Mike. Then bitching about him and his stupid flaws. Then when he moved out. Then about the roommate search. Then about my new Shannon.

I had e-mails from my parents around September 11. Messages for my birthday. Messages to people for their birthdays. Invitations to parties. Notes about new addresses / phone numbers.

And all of the stupid, stupid articles I forward to everyone. Damn, I do that alot.

It was a fun afternoon, but it was melancholy. Not really the leaving the job thing, just, well, reliving little parts of my life. And things that changed. All of the e-mails to Alexis, and now we never speak. Things from Laurie. Even my cousin, who's too busy for me now.

I can't describe it, but it put me in a little funk - not a bad mood, really, just a sad mood. I couldn't even write about it yesterday, I was too tired. I went home and slept, and now I'm better.


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Last Updated on: February 15, 2002


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