Insignificant

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Hypnotic Brass Ensemble

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These guys were playing in the Union Square subway station and hooked me right in. I picked up three of their CDs, and have been playing them pretty much non-stop ever since.

Last Monday...

It was 2 PM; the sunlight painted stripes around the room as it poured in through the blinds. I'd just sat down for a hot breakfast: 2 fried eggs, two "sausage" patties, a bagel with cream cheese & jelly, and a cup of coffee blacker than Dick Cheney's heart.

Okay, swap the coffee for orange juice.

The phone rang. There was a dame on the other end. She needed help. My help.

"~@#%&*(*--sa, calling fr-- !#$%*(# Kr-#%&*(@$^ You $*^&(#% job #@@%$^# production artist $^##@!$%^#$^#!*(&)(* interview?"

I needed help, too. Help from a cell phone service provider for better coverage and clearer calls.

The food cooled off, but I warmed up as the dame kindly read the script for the second take. She wanted to see me as soon as possible, either tonight or tomorrow morning.

Why put off for tomorrow what you can do today?

The dame told me where to show up, and who my contacts were. The address is in Soho - that'll bump up my price a bit. These people have money, and they ain't shy about spending it.

I arrived at the site early for a little reconnaissance work. The receptionist handed me a glass of water - a real glass, not some paper cup. This place was definitely on the up and up.

One of the contacts came out to work me over. We found a little hole in the wall to continue our little song & dance. It turns out, he did two years of hard time for a former client of mine. It's like they say, it's a small world.

In this business, the enemy of my enemy is my friend.

He asked if I would take the case. I was honest - my well ran dry two months ago, and I've been scraping by with the cement shoes I got as a going-away present.

He gave me the nickel tour of the joint, but considering the ritzy digs, I shoulda given him a portrait of Andrew Jackson for his trouble. The view there is pretty nice, too, and I'm not referring to the skyline. I haven't seen this many long walking sticks since I first came to this seedy city.

Then the dame who would make or break my day showed up. She fed me a buncha promises I've heard before, but those were all broken by some fly-by-nighters. She laid her cards out on the table without crossing her fingers.

I felt like I just hit Blackjack.

She asked me if I wanted to take her case.

That was a silly question.

---------------------

"So, do you want to work here?"

"Yes!"

"Okay. When can you start?"

"Tomorrow."

"See, I feel bad, because we just found a temp to start tomorrow, but I'd rather train one person instead of two. See you at 9:30?"

"You bet!"

Best job interview ever.

My primary job is to put together ads for magazines. I'm not doing any creative work. They toss me a design, and I format it for the different sized mags.

Did I mention that it's all lingerie ads? And that most of the women here look like models? Sure, they're all taken, but who cares?

The downside is, of course, being the new guy. Lunch time is the most awkward, so I try to postpone my break until everyone else is done. There's roughly 20 people there, most of which are in their early 20s to mid 30s. They're all the cool, Williamsburg hipster types, who basically have their shit together and are happy. Their dad owns a factory, their fiancee is an actress, yadda yadda yadda. I'm pretty jealous of all these fuckers.

Last Friday was the last day for one of them, so there was a party. There's a stocked bar, an HDTV, and a Wii. I was invited to play, but didn't feel like joining in. I felt like getting the hell out of there, which I did at precisely 6:01 PM.

Therapy sessions have been moved to Tuesday nights at 6:40 PM. This gives me enough time to get to the hospital from work.

The other problem I've been having is lack of sleep. I get up at 6:30 AM so I can cook breakfast and take a hot shower (two roommates, three other house mates. Hot water on a weekday morning is scarce). I can relax a little with the spare time. But being the nocturnal freak, I can't fall asleep until 2 AM. It's easier this week, but not by much.

There's other stuff going on, but I'm not going to say anything yet. But 2008 is looking better & better.

New Job

I had an interview at 6 PM today.

They love me. They really love me. I start tomorrow.

It is a major improvement on every level; pay, medical & dental benefits, 3 weeks vacation, 401K, tuition reimbursement.

The only drawback is it's normal hours. 9:30 AM to 6 PM.

I'm sure I'll get used to it.

Have a happy whatever!

All right, kids. I'm out of here until Saturday evening. Wish me luck as I venture upstate to visit family in Bumblefuck.

Just wondering...

Does anyone have my Clerks dvd? I was just looking around and I noticed it wasn't there. I don't need it back right away or anything, I just wanted to know where it was.

What else is weird is that the X-Men 1 DVD is missing from its box. It's been years since I've even touched it, and was going to give it out anyway (I have the 2-disc 1.5 version as well), but missing just the disc? Very odd.

Bleh.

Haven't been to the gym in over a month. I've rediscovered my passion for pie & ice cream. Feeling lonely and antisocial at the same time. Again, I don't leave the house unless I have to.

Job search? What job search? Probably should get started on that.

The doctor has prescribed Zoloft. So far, no side effects. Two months until the effects kick in.

There's a few TV shows I've been checking out lately. Here's the good ones so far:

Life
Chuck
Pushing Daisies
Burn Notice

WANT!

$180 from Amazon.

Keeping Busy

What's a guy to do when he doesn't have a job and doesn't really need to get another one right away?

Fuckin' VEGETATE, that's what.

Although "fuck AND vegetate" has a nice ring to it.

I updated my resume, of course, and very quickly had a job lead. The interview was on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving. The first person I spoke to was the freaking vice president of the company. Five minutes into it, he said, "I don't think this job is for you."

I readily agreed; they wanted more of a manager and less of a production artist. Then the person who arranged the interview talked with me some more, and gave me a few leads for agencies. I'll explore that in a few days.

That Monday, I had the first appointment with my new regular therapist. It went okay, I guess. I'm having a hard time keeping things straight in my head. Once I type it all out here, it sort of dissipates. I really should just give the doctor the link to this place. It'll probably be easier. He's decided to avoid medicating me for a while.

I spent a good portion of that first week off sorting through my crap and disposing of a lot if junk. There's still a little left to go, but it's manageable.

My parents came down for Thanksgiving/my 29th birthday.

(Sucksgiving & Thanksgiving on the same day? That sucks!)

They arrived a little after 12 PM that Thursday, bearing pie, cookies, cash, and a family heirloom that I didn't know we had:


This watch belonged to my Great-Grandfather Brady. Grandpa inherited it at some point, possibly before GG went nuts. Grandpa eventually gave it to my dad at a point where he was very proud of him. Dad said, "I've been meaning to give this to you for a while now..."

They survived the trip to Brooklyn for Thanksgiving dinner at my former landlady's house. On the way there, I gave them a brief tour of my former neighborhood.

Friday they got the tour of Astoria; specifically the park and the house Grandpa Brady grew up in. With Dad's busted knee, and Mom's anemia, it wasn't easy for them to get around. After the hour-long walk, they crashed on my bed. I ran over to the local Staples and used my birthday money to pick up some ink and paper to print out some of the pictures I'd taken.

I didn't have anything to do, and if I had, they were too beat to do anything. So we just lazed around a bit until dinner time.

It was a bitterly cold evening. On the way back to my house from the restaurant, there was a small group of boys in their early teens a half-block behind us. They were yelling such obscenities like "he sucked my giant dick!" or whatever. I told my parents to keep walking, and turned around. I walked past the boys, and turned again to follow them.

One of them looked back, and said something to his crewmate. He also looked back. They proceeded to shut the fuck up, and crossed the street. My parents watched the whole thing. I quickly caught up to them, and Dad asked, "what did you say to them?"

"Nothing. I didn't have to."

They got in the car and drove to the hotel. They went home early Saturday morning.

I spent the rest of the night preparing stuffing & pies for Lynne's annual "Saturday After Thanksgiving" party, at which a good time was had by all. Lynne got me the book Comics as Philosophy, which will probably end up on my Cartoonists' Syllabus.

I woke Sunday afternoon and started to work on a project Francis needed some help on. As of this writing, there's five things I have left to work on, but I'm waiting for a bit of art direction that was missing from the instructions.

My second therapy session was on Wednesday. I'm not quite as comfortable with him yet, but it's only a matter of time.

With almost everything else wrapped up, I spent Friday night trying to organize/bag/board the Fuckton of comics I've accumulated over the past two years, and continued to weed out the comics I don't want anymore. I've started to make the transition from long to short comic boxes, to make things easier the next time I move. It seems I need 15 more short boxes to get the job done.

So far, I have seven long boxes full of comics I don't want. I originally intended to give them away, but I'll try selling them on eBay first. I just need to sort out all of those first, before I start taking pics and all that nonsense.

My mood lately is a strange combination of unrestrained apathy, irritability, yearning for solitude, and lonliness. How to describe that...

"I don't care, don't be stupid, leave me alone, please stay."

It's all right; it doesn't make any sense to me, either.

Oh, and I've put on more than a few pounds. Yikes. I need to get my expanding ass to the gym.

Stop me if you've heard this one before...

An atheist and a Greek Orthodox priest walk into a gym and talk about rap music and depression.

I've had more surreal moments, but this is certainly in the top 15.