1999 november 02crowdedi have two new officemates. and, joy of joys, because the company is in the middle of a growth spurt, i will soon have three. four people in one office, even a big corner office, is almost too much for me to bear. and the people in here with me now are chatty. all day long with the never ending chatter. if they aren't telling me about their woes or excitements or daily news facts, they are talking to themselves as they go about their work. i've never understood that whole self talk thing, whether it be daily affirmations or simply giving myself instructions as i go about my tasks. i mean how completely stupid would i sound muttering, "open the mail. open. umm, inbox, okay. wow, thirteen messages. let's see, hmm, john. open." i suppose i should be glad they don't read the entire message out loud. they talk themselves through opening programs, through writing documents, through game playing. any minute now i expect to overhear, "i am a very special person. i can do whatever i put my mind to. i am a competent and efficient employee." any minute now, i am going to throw people out of my office. one of the officemates, the woman, is a palestinian from bethlehem; she has a great accent. she also has an inordinate number of friends who call her at the office, so she is always on the phone. she switches back and forth between english and arabic while taking these calls, and the more arabic she speaks, the faster and louder her speech becomes. i try to tune her out but my poor brain keeps trying to make english out of all the unfamiliar sounds and i end up paying far more attention than i should. there are a lot of la sounds in arabic. la la la, blah blah blah, claire
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