Today, someone came to the DVD recording room and told us that a truck had arrived at bay five and they wanted to know if we could help them unload. I went down there and found three-fourths of the men who work here walking onto the truck and lifting bright orange shelf sections, each one ten feet long, then placing them in a pile inside the storage room. I lifted a few myself until the group decided to form a line to pass the shelves down. Two of the men took it upon themselves to break from the line to do the piling, and every time we got one of the parts to them we had to wait as they set it down, three of us still holding the next piece of frigid metal in our rapidly reddening palms. There were probably sixty of these shelf parts. I don't know what QAI is plainning to store on them, but at this place, for all I know it could be in preparation for the predicted surge of warrant applications to the secret FISA courts. Guys, this is such a weird office, you have no idea.

When the orange shelf parts were done, we moved on to the eight massive bookend-like shelf holders, five feet tall and crossed with support bars. Each of them were so heavy and large that they took two men to carry, and we had to lift the next one progressively higher as they piled up, eventually to shoulder level. These parts were unloaded rather quickly, after which we all stood around and watched as two guys, one the son of the company owner and the other who looked like he came with the truck (work gloves, checkered white and black flannel jacket) moved yet more orange ten-foot shelf parts off of the truck and into the storage room. We were all wearing business clothes: dress pants, button-down shirts, a few ties. We took no precautions against injury; were we to keep this up, eighty percent of us would probably be taken out within a month. I wonder if I was the only one who felt absurd imagining the job of construction workers and moving men, thinking of the cheesy, metal guitar-filled music they listen to, the kind of food they eat, the way they probably interact with each other, the way they see the world. My arm muscles felt slightly sore, like after going to the gym, and my back ever so slightly strained. I could imagine the effects of time and repetition, causing the upper body muscles to grow taut, and eventually causing the back to go out. I imagined how, the next day I came in to a job like that, I would have my gloves, and shortly thereafter, upgrade to work gloves as I noticed tears in the leather of my more bougie ones. Maybe I'd even get a flannel jacket myself after awhile, though not black and white checks; and work boots and jeans.

When I came back inside, I went to the lunch room and couldn't help but classify the workers by age and strength. I, a pack a day smoker who works out maybe once a week, felt myself having scorn for the weak people I saw all around me, the results of sedentary work and automobile travel. I sat back and watched my psychology as it took masculine pride in a job well done, felt a love and attachement to the "foreman" son of the owner as he walked into the breakroom, wondered what the 'oomen thought.

And now I go to buy a pack of Camels and then return to my office chair and newspaper, perfectly happy to be doing so.

The Washington Post's top story continues to be the existence of an incredibly cute baby panda in the National Zoo. This time, it is on the front page. I have been unable to find the picture online, but trust me, it is very cute. Awww.

I have "Jeff's iPod" (those words just look so wrong together) back in my pocket, where it belongs, so we can make the switch anytime you want, Scott. It's waiting for you with all its Fresh-Seam, Untroubled-Hardrive glory. Also, if you're reading this, Scott, why don't you sign in to your old blog and post something? Even just random keyboard strokes, or part of a Hypinion thread. Your fans are patient, but throw us a bone, here.

Today, one of my coworkers, a puzzling and nauseating rube named Billy, turned to the supervisor and said, "Okay, I want to test your acting ability. I'll give you an emotion and you try to--"

"What are you talking about?"

I turned to Billy and explained this normal human reaction, as I so often have to do. I chose to explain the simplest of the many reasons what he had just said was absurd. "It's considered polite to ask permission before making a request like that."

The other reasons for the absurdity are that even if he had posed this "test" as a request, it would be inexplicable, since he had given no introduction; that, as soon became clear, he was seriously looking for us to portray deep emotions as accurately as possible, which would erode the defensive wall between public self and work self; that his uninvited request, without reason or warning, disrupted whatever each of us had been doing; and that Billy is himself absurd.

He is the newest worker in the office, and ever since he came, there has been a noticable increase in the already present tension caused by cabin fever and bizarre activity. He is both a childlike simpleton and an extrovert, which leads him to break into every conversation in the most painfully awkward and uninformed manner possible, while at the same time being entirly unaware of why people don't like it when he does this. Example: two people were talking about politics yesterday, and how they think there is no difference between Republicans and Democrats (a harmful illusion which originated with the rhetoric of Ralph Nader and the Green Party, and from there made its way into the discourse of ignorant people everywhere). Cindy Sheehan came up, favorably as this is, thank god, at least a room full of Bush haters; Seun (yes, S-E-U-N "shawn", a black guy from New York and the smartest of my coworkers) asked if Bush ever talked to her, and Billy nitpicked that he had already met with her, along with other mothers who had lost children. "Come on," Seun called out, "they were prepped! They were probably telling them what they could ask for weeks!" This was met with astonishment. "I'm telling you, they were prepped, just like everyone else he talks to." Billy took this opportunity to steer the discussion toward whether he himself would be allowed to express his thoughts to Bush, asserting that surely he would be able to. He could just walk up to him and tell him how mad he was, and nothing would happen to him since we have free speech.

If this is hard to follow, it's because I'm finding it hard to recreate the situation. It was so absurd. Maybe you get some idea of it.

Another example of Billy's eerie annoyingness: three weeks ago, I was walking back to the office after buying cigarettes when a car drove by me and honked its horn. After I got back to the parking lot, I was standing on the sidewalk smoking when Billy walked up to me and said, "You didn't even jump!"

Another example: today he held up a sheet of paper and asked us each in turn, "do you think you could solve this?" I squinted to see what was on the paper. It was a maze. Billy had just created it and he wanted one of us to try it. He gave it to Matt (who has a highschool mentality and acts as though he's in a perpetual Will Farrell movie), and then told him, "and don't try starting from the finish, either. Start from the start."

Another example: At any given time, Billy is liable to look up from whatever he's reading and ask me (me specifically, because the room has decided that I'm a genius; no, really, they have said so many times and without irony, it's really embarrassing) to explain a concept, define a word, give a history, provide a fact. The questions are usually phrased in a manner so unclear that I can't tell exactly what he's asking.

"Can we see other galaxies?"

"What's so bad about marijuanna that they've made it illegal?"

"Is it better to buy a house and fix it up and then sell it, or to build a house and sell it?"

Another example: Billy has mainly read entertainment magazines since he's come, although recently he's started reading novels. I think he has a gay friend, who has been recommending stuff he can read to figure out what it means to be homosexual, because two of them were written with a gay narrator and, when asked, he said a friend had recommended them. I asked him what one of them was about, and he said, looking defensive and weary, "well, it's not necessarily work safe."

"What do you mean?"

"You have to be a . . . you have to have liberal views not to think it's offensive. It's about a gay kid."

I wish I were making all this stuff up, I really do. I don't think I could invent Billy if I tried.