Notes on a Quest....

So, did I mention that I put Plan B into full effect?

Awesome...one hour spent writing a FUCKING LONG POST, and one accidental flick of the finger while I sneeze closes the whole window.  

I'm PISSED.

So I'm in Seattle now.  And I live with a stripper who just detoxed from methadone and has two kids with two baby daddies.  I met her in grad school and she took me in here after I overstayed my welcome in Boston.

Did I miss anything?

Nah, probably not.  I'm squeaking by (and squeaking doesn't begin to describe it) on freelance web gigs from craigslist.  I'm so tired of the whole struggling artist thing.

My stripper friend earns about $500 a night.  Too bad I'm not better looking.

KISS and Halloween

For some really scary shit..

http://www.typepad.com/t/trackback/221461/22832668

Kiss get their first television exposure in 1976 on The Paul Lynde Halloween Special - now on DVD. Stay tuned for some scarrrry disco dancing action with Pinkie Tuscadero (Roz Kelly) as well as such variety show icons as Billy Barty, Tim Conway, Florence Henderson, Betty White, and of course very special co-hosts The Wicked Witch of the West (Margaret Hamilton) and Witchiepoo (Billie Hayes).

Jesus Christ...Superstar!

Well, a few of my other blog friends pointed out that Sunday was Easter.  And we all pondered that dead guy named Jesus for about a second or two before returning to our daily lives.  I still don't really know what all the fuss is about, but as a kid I used to love the candy.  Other than that, I find organized religion kind of boring.  Chalk it up to wearing a uniform most of my life.  In fact, I was even suspended in high school for skipping church.  Where did they send me?  TO THE LIBRARY!  Their next big mistake was asking me to write a paper concerning religion (apparently they thought this novel approach would drill the love of god right into me..sort of like a nail through the hand).  So I wrote that paper.  And for that week I spent in there, I read Kant, Sartre, Kierkegaard, and Nietzsche.  Fun was had by all when I turned that sucker in. They kind of left me alone after that.

Anyway, here's a late Easter present for everyone.  Have fun!

Hipppies, sun eaters and friendly, friendly New Englanders....

I think it finally hit me yesterday, after waiting in sub zero temperatures for 20 minutes for my bus, that I was back in New England.  That I had ditched the high paying job and yet again moved my shit here for grad school.

The bus I was waiting for (20 mins in sub zero temps may I again remind you) never came.  I have the bus dispatcher's number on my speed dial (yes, this is a frequent and daily process) and called him only to learn my bus was stuck in some other small New England village for some unknown reason.  So I had to take another bus that winds its way around the environs of my village and then ponderously crawls via the industrial road to the next village over.  In that village I need to wait yet again for the next bus that FINALLY takes me to U. M ASS.  This is all because I need to get my car registered, get a license and get insurance.  Which is hard to do when you don't have a car to GET to the DMV in the first place.  Yes, this is a nightmare.

When the other bus finally came, I got on and I flashed him my student ID (here we get to ride the system for free with the ID).  And what friendly, friendly (and fucking typical I might add) response do I get from the old codger behind the wheel?  "I DON'T TAKE STUDENT IDs MISS!!!!"

I mean, he yelled it.    The others on the bus looked away.  In NY, someone might have stepped up for me at that point, but here in chilly Mass. everyone minds their own business.  How do you think so many witches were burned at the stake?

Anyway, I politely informed him that I was under the impression that I could use my ID on the bus line and he impolitely yelled back that I couldn't and that I had better pay up.  Fuck.  It was only a dollar so I gave it to him and huffed to the back where I sat for the rest of the ride glowering at him in the rearview mirror.

Welcome back to Western Massachusetts.   

My neighbor, a pianist from Argentina, came over last night for a cigarette and a beer and to introduce himself.  Not 5 minutes into the conversation, after finding out I'm not from these parts, he leaned over and said, "Can you believe how awful the people are here?  How rude and unfriendly?"  I had to agree and to this we drank a beer.  So perhaps I've made a new friend.

I'm currrently sitting in a cafe located in my village.  This is the only cafe in my village.  I naively walked in at 3:30 hoping to spend the evening here writing, but was informed by the pale and skinny vegan hippy behind the counter that they close at 4pm.   4 pm.  I looked around.  The place was packed.  With hippies of course, but hippies eating their stupid vegan food and drinking their coffee.  Hippies spending money. 

I told her I had just come in from New York and maybe I didn't understand the ways of life yet in the Village.  She looked and me and smiled and responded that frankly she found the Village to be too big for her.  She could never imagine the likes of NY.  So I bought a rather bland tasting vegan chili burrito and I sit here eating it.  Blogging now instead of working, because what's the point.

Interesting fact shared to me by someone who had once lived here a while.  There is a commune of people who live outside of Northampton called the Sun Eaters.  Apparently, they are raw foodists who believe eventually they can wean themselves off of raw food and just live on the sun's nutrients ALONE.  Eventually they want to feed themselves by sitting in the sun and just soaking up the rays.

First of all, good fucking luck in this weather and second of all, have they mentioned this technique to those displaced folks in Darfur?  Hell, who needs food!

And with that folks, I welcome you, and me, back home to Western Massachusetts. 

Working from home...

Well, just so you all know, Manhattan did not blow up.   The gas leak was caused by the toxic swamps in New Jersey releasing whatever builds up in their polluted wastelands.  So that's what happened.

But now I'm finding I don't need a mere threat of toxic gas floating over Manhattan to keep me from showing up to work.  Nay.  All I need is to sleep later and later and keep "working from home".

Gradually, others have caught onto this.  Today I received an Instant Msg from my boss at 9:15 am (this is how we keep track of one another...instant messages).  Of course I wasn't up at 9:15.  I was slumbering away until 10:15.  When I finally got up and answered her IM, I was a bit scared I'd been found out, but all  she wanted was to tell me she wasn't coming into work.  So, it seems I've set a precedent.  I IM'd another co-worker, out of guilt really since it has been a week since I've shown up to work, and she even encouraged me not to come in.  Apparently all the bosses were "out sick", "working from home" or just taking the day off for no apparent reason.

But I figured I might as well see what the environs of my office looked like again, so I caught a train and drifted in around noon.  Still pretty much the same.  Then I had to talk to someone for an hour on the phone for a personal call, after which I went and fetched some lunch.   Now it's 2:35 and I have to leave by 4:30 to make a doctor's appt I have.

I suppose I really should get started on this documentation they assigned me.  A month ago.  Might be a good idea to finish it before leaving Friday for a week's visit to the west coast.  After which I move back to Massachusetts and into the new apartment I just found last week.

FBI's most wanted? Or Big Media's?

Turns out the FBI dropped by my apartment yesterday, but no one was home.

This is the news that my roommate delivered when I got home last night after shopping for last minute Thanksgiving items.  I guess two agents came by at around 3pm and pounded on our door long enough to arouse the attention of one of our neighbors.  She came out into the hall and asked them what they were there for.  They apparently flashed their badges and asked her if she knew who lived in my apartment.  She told them my roommate's name and then said "and some redhead that moved in a few months ago". 

Lovely.

Victoria and I spent an hour last night sifting through our various checkered pasts to try and figure out why the FBI wants anything with us.  Here's the list of potentials.

1)  The Australian con man she lived with for 8 months in the Dominican Republic.  Apparently, he scammed a lot of money from high level people there.  Then tried to do something underhanded concerning buying a satellite company based in Wash. DC.  As I pointed out to Victoria, this man sounds like a little more than your average con man.  More like a spy or something weird like that.  If I were the FBI, I would like to speak to him too.

2)  My forgetting to pay the IRS this month...but that's probably not it.

3) My undergrad years from college.  That very well could be it.

4)  Omar, a guy who lived in the apartment where I live now for three months about a year ago.  I never met the guy.  According to Victoria (who is black, smart, well educated , etc) there was something really creepy about him and she was glad when he moved out.

5)  Allan, the previous roommate to my arrival.  Recently, he's gone off the deep end with his cocaine and Xanex habit.  He's also lied to Victoria about finding a high paying job.  He hasn't found one.  But he is flush with money and constantly traveling internationally. 

Well anyway, there's the initial list just off the top of our heads.  And in other news, I purchased a plane ticket to go to SF, CA to do Christmas and New Years with friends.  I figured that because Big Media has an enforced week off between the two holidays and since my contract runs out at the end of Dec.  then Dec 20 looked like a good day to wrap up.

So yeah, I bought the plane ticket.  And then was told by Big Media they want me here and working on Christmas Day.  They want me available here in NYC until Dec 31st.  So much for the holidays.

In other news, my boss fired The Tool from Newport Beach today. 

Anyway, I'm off to New England.  Happy feasting everyone.
 

Flooded....

Well this weekend was fun.

But no, I did not "get any".  I decided to take an earlier train up to New England to make a party happening on Sat night and P. was supposed to drive up on Sunday to meet me for an afternoon of driving through the New England countryside followed by a picnic with my poetry classmates.  Then he was going to drive me home on Monday.  And it didn't happen.

See, on Sat night it rained very hard in NY and New Jersey.  So while I was eating the flesh of a pig cooked for two days in a pit dug by fellow classmates, P. tried to drive his car through a very flooded intersection.  And subsequently had to be rescued by the police. His engine got "flooded out" and he may have to buy a new car now.  Meanwhile, I was seeing how low I could go on the limbo....

Story of my life I tell you.  When he called me, I wasn't the least surprised.  Although, he sounded positively distressed.  Still, i was thinking, "of course my date couldn't make it".  And although he was appropriately frustrated, I adjusted and continued on.   What else was I going to do?

The weekend was wonderful despite.  Hung out with friends and hung out with Famous Poet and his wife Really Well Known Poet.  Then Poet Who Is On the Faculty went out with the rest of us later and many drinks were enjoyed.

I returned at 1am Tues morning.  Woke up 6 hrs later and went to work. 

So that's the update so far.  But don't despair.  As of a few hours ago, I have a GREAT story to tell. It involves money, gangsters, and famous people.  And I lack the energy to type it all in right now.  All I have to say is I still love this damn city.  More soon....

Religion = superstition

So Easter came and went.  Remember how I told you all that I organized a picnic?  I sent out an email that jokingly refered to Easter as the day where "they killed that guy Jesus or he rose from the dead or something" and I got back emails from another grad student correcting me!  Like c'mon, first off I was being my usual irreverent self (obvious in the tone of the email) and secondly, I found out that there are grad students in our midst who attend church. 

Writers no less.  I find this unbelievable.  There are at least three of them. 

Who the hell gets to the level where they pursue an advanced degree and they still go to church?  Anyway, one of them is all of twenty-four and innocent as the day she was born.  Like me she is in the poetry program.  The other night we were out having drinks for someone else's birthday and I was making my usual statements about the world and the universe that are never taken seriously by those who know me.  But I could see her looking at me like a deer in the headlights.  I think she is slightly scared of my aetheism, my secular ways and the fact that I've actually been out and about in the world for a good fifteen years actually having real experiences.  She simply finished college, worked for two years and went right back in. 

And there's nothing wrong with that.  It's just that if she's seen more of the world, she might not be attending church.  She might not be so annoyingly innocent either.  And I wonder just how innocent she really is?  I'll bet she has a supressed dark side barely kept in check by the whole jesus thing. 

Anyway, I should have made the picnic in the spirit of declaring War on Easter.  Then I could have recruited everyone who showed up to pass these flyers out in the park to all the small children.

I guess this all shocks me because on the west coast I never made friends with religious people.  All my friends were aethiests like me.  And in San Francisco, well, it wasn't exactly a religious city.  So the issue rarely came up.  But still.....why go to grad school and still you believe in Santa Claus?

Mercury is indeed out of retrograde...

This has been confirmed by various sources.  It came back out about a week and a half ago.  Right when my luck started to change.  And to make things really weird...my DVD player mysteriously started working again tonight.  Turns out it was only "broken" for a month.  Then it fixed itself.  How is this possible?  More importantly, why does the universe fuck with my head?

Christian LegoLand....

Yeah!  Or maybe I should say Yahweh!  Hey, they look about as much fun as they sound!!  A great gift for the whole family.

Christian Legos!!!!