March 4, 2021

Thursday

I just submitted my taxes on TurboTax for $200, and now I am receiving a little less than $800 back from the government. I only paid for $160 in services, but there was also a $40 charge for having the fees subtracted from my winnings. I paid money so that I could pay them money. My taxes on my taxes got taxed.

Because I have nothing better to do, I am trying to be sexy, and attract people like a magnet. I am using argan oil to moisturize my face and ease my undying rash, running and doing devastating abulary working outs, and slamming Perfect Smoothies whilst smoking cigarettes and driving through Burnsville and doing deliveries. I do feel like a chick magnet, but also the chicks are magnets and our negative poles are repelling one another across the map, and then one of the magnets moves from Portland to Minneapolis and leaves the other magnet behind because these magnets were going to married, anyways. Now the one magnet is alone. Getting abs at this point would be like buying a Ferrari and keeping it in the garage.

Yesterday, Alex the Intern was doing some kind of squat prayer, crouching and pushing out her knees with her elbows, hands clasped. I attempted to do the same and tore my jeans with immediacy, which I heard before I saw. I talked about my wholy pants far too much over the next hour, which again begs the question of what harassment. I still do not understand the distinction vis-a-vis my organization's bylines, and my philosophical investigation into the terms would raise alarms for anyone unaware that I am somewhere between a nerd and an idiot, and idionerd. As I discovered at work, when you type d into my Google the only suggestion is “difference between assault and harassment.”

During my intake I recall asking Kristy, our head of Human Resources, to delineate the two inappropriate errors, as if there were some decision to make.

“So assault is always physical, mmm?” I asked, feeling cool in the French trench jacket I had whipped around proudly. I took it to mean we were just doing some term definition in a philosophy class, Kristy being a philosophy graduate herself, and a good bit of fun. “What about calling someone a pathetic little agnostic, is that assault?”

Kristy shrugged my questions off, and returned to telling me that if someone unwillingly hears me talking about sex with a co-worker, it could definitely be counted as harassment. Did this come up often? What if a group of people hear it, a group of innocent volunteers and interns gathered around a superior squatting and talking about the latest options into his pants, is that harassment or assault?

Pants ripped, I crossed my knees in our team meeting later in the afternoon and announced that I would be leaving Open Arms on May 28th.

“That’s my birthday!” Alana yelled.

I still don’t know if she was mournful or excited, but, as I fingered the hole in my crotch, I smiled, and knew it didn’t matter. It has been a glass half harassment kind of week.