« October 2003 | Home | December 2003 »

November 2003 Archives

November 28, 2003

Five Albums of the Week (2)

Stolen from Remy; amended to include albums instead of songs.

B-Sides by Juliana Hatfield (1990-1997, various labels)

For the first time in several months, I burned an actual audio CD. It’s a particular CD I’ve been meaning to burn for awhile, and it includes all the Juliana Hatfield b-sides I have, along with the two non-single EPs that she’s released (Please Do Not Disturb and Rosy Jack World with the Blake Babies). I tried to work in the non-album tracks from Gold Stars, but the CD got pretty cramped pretty fast, so I only managed to fit one. Here’s the track listing:

1. Sellout
2. Trying Not to Think About It
3. As if Your Life Depended on It
4. Give Me Some of That
5. Get Off
6. The Edge of Nowhere
7. Tamara
8. Raisans
9. Here Comes the Pain
10. Rider
11. Feed Me
12. Where Would I be Without You?
13. Yardsailing
14. Girl in Blue Volvo Disowns Self
15. Hello My Name is Baby
16. I Got No Idols (piano version)
17. Batwing
18. Temptation Eyes
19. Downtime
20. Take Me
21. Severed Lips
22. Nirvana (acoustic version)
23. Table For One

So, yeah, there’s that.

Pink Moons Yellow Hearts by Dressy Bessy (1999, Kindercore Records)

I was first turned on to Dressy Bessy by my ol’ mate Ian, who is currently spending the majority of his time getting pissed, shagging, and enjoying tea, crumpets, biscuits, kippers, and so on. I imagine he still reads the ol’ blog, but I never really asked him. I’d link to the blog he was supposed to start, but he never did, so never mind that.

Needless to say, this is quite a good album. Not as good as Sound Go Round, but it’s Dressy Bessy, so it’s pretty fucking good.

Smeared by Sloan (1992, Universal Records)

This is another Ian pick. It’s funny, because right after he recommended all this fucking great music, my sister owed me $30 for a gift we went dutch on, so I told her she could get me some CDs with her Borders discount and we’d call it even. This was one of them, Pink Hearts Yellow Moons was one of them, and the next album pick was the third. I gave her this list in May, and I got the CDs last week.

In summary, my sister is a chump.

The Three EPs by the Beta Band (1999, EMI Records)

The first time I listened to this CD, I loved it. Now that I actually own it, I don’t like it so much. I’m sorta disappointed, because had I thought my sister would actually come through with the CDs, I would have made a switch at the last minute.

Ein deutsches Requiem by Johannes Brahms, as performed by the Montiverdi Choir and the Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique, under the direction of John Eliot Gardiner (1991, Philips Records)

Remember the assignment I did last week in which I used some songs from Bed to create a short script concept about a woman with borderline-personality disorder who kills herself? Well, I ended up going with that subject for my final project, except it’s drastically different. Basically, the only things that remained the same are these:

(1) There is a woman in it
(2) Somebody dies

The woman has the same character name, and she has the same general demeanor, only instead of being depressed and sorta crazy, now she’s really angry and sorta crazy. She doesn’t have borderline — she’s just intensely angry and antisocial. In summary, she’s me as a woman. Sigh. I think I’m in love.

In this version of the script, she’s not having an affair, she doesn’t go off her meds, and she doesn’t kill herself. Instead, her mother dies, and it’s all about her and her brother dealing with the death. It’s much less histrionic and much more depressing. It’s also very tough for me to write, because I don’t enjoy dredging up, you know, human emotions. They make my writing, you know, good.

I’ve been listening to the Brahms requiem to get in touch with all the fun death feelings I keep buried as deep as they will possibly go. I initially thought it was working pretty well, but I’ve reached a point where I think this script is subtle to the point where nothing remotely interesting happens. So, basically, it’s like everything else I write.

Posted by Stan on November 28, 2003 9:38 PM  | Permalink  | Comments (0)  | Friday Five/Albums of the Week

November 25, 2003

Vindication

I’m never going to graduate, and here’s why: during my third semester at Columbia, I took Screenwriting I. Being that I have a concentration in screenwriting, it was the first step (actually the second, but the first important step) toward that concentration. Essentially, the goal of the class is this: write three 10-15-page short scripts. One’s documentary, one’s narrative, one’s experimental. In order to move on to other screenwriting classes, you must pass the first one with a B or higher.

I got a C.

Why’d I get a C? I want to be a screenwriter, one could argue I’ve vaguely cut out for the job, but suddenly I have this ghastly C tarnishing my record.

Is it because I didn’t do any of the work, or I did it poorly? No. I did every assignment, and I did it to the best of my ability. Apparently my best, in the opinion of my professor, was mediocre.

Is it because I blew off the class? No. We are allowed three absences; I missed class once, and it was a dire circumstance, and I put my assignment in her box hours before class began. And since she canceled class one day so she could move, I’d say that technically I have no absences. Tit for tat.

Is it because I didn’t participate enough? No. Trust me, I do hate being around people, and I hate acknowledging the existence of others even more — but that’s trumped by my love for the sound of my own voice.

Is it because, even though I tried my hardest, I’m incompetent and untalented as a writer? Possibly, but (and here’s where I start to brag, so skip to the next paragraph if you don’t want to vomit) the many hard-earned A’s in my other writing and/or film classes — including the A the second time I took Screenwriting I — that would indicate otherwise.

Is it because on more than one occasion I got so frustrated with my professor that I yelled unkind things at her? It’s the most plausible theory so far, and while I’m sure that factored into it, I doubt it’s the sole cause.

Really, the problem was the professor. I often complain about the general incompetence of professors at my school, especially in the film department. Mostly, they’re part-timers who are either jaded and cynical because their careers never took off, or they’re even more jaded and cynical because their careers did take off and then flopped.

My original screenwriting professor was one of the latter, and while she seemed affable at first, as the weeks wore on she began to exhibit less ability to control the students, and finally she would just get frustrated and scream at us. It was very creatively stimulating, like sculpting or acupuncture.

I didn’t get frustrated by her lack of control over the students. I didn’t even get particularly frustrated when she kept me waiting for over an hour — with a line that stretched around the corner of the hall — for an individual conference, even though that was the first of three occasions I took it upon myself to shout at her. Really, what bothered me was her inability to do her job.

She followed the syllabus to the letter. We did all the exercises we’re supposed to do in the class, which are supposed to get the creative juices a-flowin’. But nothing was connected to anything else. There was no clarity as to why we were supposed to be doing these creative exercises — in fact, at the time, none of us realized they were creative exercises. They were just things we did, and the professor was fairly apathetic about them. She was coasting through the class.

Things got so muddled as far as due dates and her returning work to us that the revised draft of our narrative script was due on the last week of class, along with the first (and only) draft of our experimental scripts.

Guess what else happened on the last day of class? We got back the first drafts of our narrative scripts. That’s right — we were turning in final drafts without having any constructive feedback on our first. Well, we had feedback from other students in the class, but we’re all in the same boat — Screenwriting I, where everybody (including me) is trying to write a complete feature in 15 pages. None of us had any idea, until much later, that our screenplays were so schizophrenic from the time-crunch that they made no sense to anyone, including ourselves.

In short (pun intended), because we had no basis for teaching other than the many, many features we’ve seen all our lives, none of us were writing short scripts. We were all just trying to write tiny, non-sensical feature-length scripts. It’s a subtle and possibly confusing distinction, but I’ll get to that later.

After the class, though — after I got the C, I should say — I tried to petition the grade. I filed a formal petition with the dean of students, I scheduled a meeting, and he told me: “You’re screwed.” He was not as blunt, but it would have been less time-consuming if he had been. I spent several weeks trying to battle this, just to be shot down. And I had to wait for yet another semester — because by the time it was resolved, add/drop was long over — to re-take Screenwriting I. Hence, a year behind.

Flash forward another semester. Here I am, in all my Stantacular glory, taking a class with — guess who? — a co-chair of the screenwriting department. She’s very nice to me, she doesn’t completely dislike my work, and she knows everything about the school. She is a handy ally to have.

I went to see her today about registration, which is fast approaching. I was wondering what she, in her expert opinion, thought I should take. She reviewed my academic history, and she noticed the repeat Screenwriting I. She asked why I did that, and I told her it was because of the C.

“You know who could’ve fixed that?” she asked.

“You,” I sighed.

“Right,” she responded.

But, see, here’s the thing: I didn’t know that until last Wednesday, when she came into class and told us that, if we felt it necessary, she could waive certain requirements for us. Advisors can’t do it; she can. This is something advisors don’t tell you. This is something the school handbook doesn’t tell you. In fact, it doesn’t say this anywhere in any of the school literature, except possibly in very small handwriting in the toilet stall on the fifth floor of the library.

I told her as much, and she grew frustrated and asked me who I had for Screenwriting I.

I told her.

She rolled her eyes at the very mention of the woman’s name, which filled me with a sort of glee, even though it was way too late to waive the requirement and the A I got the second time expunged the C from my record.

She told me, “Nobody writes a good script in Screenwriting I. Nobody should get a C in that class, unless they blatantly don’t do the work.”

I couldn’t help but agree with her, and I secretly hoped this would somehow affect my former screenwriting professor’s job in some way or another. It’s good to know people.

The truth is, though, even if I had known who to go and see right away about waiving that requirement, I probably would be worse off in the long run. I learned nothing in Screenwriting I, which wouldn’t be a big deal except I thought I knew everything. I didn’t know shit. I still don’t, but I know enough to know I don’t. Two years ago, I didn’t even know that much.

So, let’s say I’d gotten the requirement waived. I’d feel vindicated, because somebody agreed with me that I didn’t deserve a C. I’d move on to screenwriting 2, and let’s say I happened to have the same professor for that that I have now for screenwriting 2.

You know what I’d be learning? Nothing.

Then, I’d get into the more difficult classes with the harder-nosed professors — the permanent faculty, made up of people who want to be there. I don’t think I’d flunk out or anything, but I’d probably end up getting nothing but C’s in those classes. I hadn’t learned humility, and I only learned that as a result of the academic track of the past year.

Part of the experience even came from the consequence of that C and the trouble I had dealing with it. If I had gone straight to someone in the department and had it fixed, it would have left me feeling cocky as ever. I needed to be taken down a notch by somebody who absolutely did not give a shit about me one way or the other, only to be embraced (metaphorically, you sick fuckers) by several who mentored me and help me hone my craft and, basically, realize I didn’t know shit.

And in learning I didn’t know shit, that meant I had to actually learn things, starting with how to write a short screenplay. Not a 120-page feature I wanted to condense to 15 — an actual short, designed from the ground up to work as a 15-20 minute film. I did that, and while I don’t think it’s any masterpiece, I kind of want to show it to my current professor and see if she reevaluates her position that nobody writes a good script in Screenwriting I.

I spent a year trying to re-learn a craft that, it turns out, I didn’t actually know to begin with. This, and my experience with the grandiose apathy of the administration, and my misery in my first session of Screenwriting I when compared to the sudden understanding of my second bout with the class — all of them helped me to become a better writer and a better person (yes, believe it or not, I used to be a worse person).

I wouldn’t trade that experience for the extra $6000 that I will end up spending (out of pocket, no less) on a spare year of school.

Posted by Stan on November 25, 2003 10:00 PM  | Permalink  | Comments (1)  | School Rants

November 24, 2003

Creepy Dan

There’s a guy Lucy hangs out with named Dan. Shortly after I met him, I took to calling him Creepy Dan because, frankly, he’s creepy. It’s hard to describe specifically why he’s creepy, aside from the fact that he radiates “OMFG CREEPY” vibes that can be felt from here to Kalamazoo.

He has this hunched-over demeanor that screams, “This is normal only if I’m a hunchback,” and the few times I’ve associated with him, all he ever did was sit there and stare at her. No, not stared. Leered. And, as a close personal friend and unofficial sworn protector of Lucy, I’ve often said things to her such as, “Would it be all I right if I pulled Creepy Dan’s lower intestines out via his mouth?”

She often says no.

The reason Creepy Dan always stares at her this: he’s in love with her. He has that faraway, sad, demented sort of love for her that most people get over sometime during the painful transition between junior high and high school. It’s that sort of pining-from-a-far, casually-leering-and-hoping-she-doesn’t-notice-even-though-clearly-she-does love. He puts her on a pedestal high above mere mortals, and being that I know Lucy a little better than he does, I’m gonna go ahead and say she shouldn’t be up there. He does stupid Milhouse things for her, the “If I do anything she says, she’s sure to notice me” method of getting a girl. And it doesn’t work.

In short, he’s me at 14. Except I’m pretty sure he’s 24. Which just makes it sad, as opposed to cute (although I’m positive it was sad at 14, too).

Unfortunately, Lucy has taken it upon herself to aid and abet his puppy-dog love, which she knows all about (him declaring it outright was one of the subtle clues). She has this magical ability to ignore everything she would rather not know about people and still go on associating with them. This is one of those things that I am not only unable to do, but I am also physically incapable of figuring out how the hell anyone can do that.

Of course, according to her, I’m antisocial and am prone to angry outbursts because I only confide things in her, and even then I keep the really bad stuff secret. I inherently distrust people, I’m paranoid, I’m misanthropic, and if either of us believed in a legitimate afterlife, we’d agree I’d probably go to the bad one. Also, even though she never says this, I’m pretty sure she thinks I’m the most boring person on the planet.

But at least I’m not creepy.

Lucy also has the tendency to manipulate and abuse people if she can get away with it. I know this because she used to do it to me until I shouted really awful things at her. Then, she stopped, and I have to believe she respects me more, if only for the creative profanity combos (I learned everything I know from my dad). Now, she does this with Creepy Dan (hence the Milhouse syndrome), and she gets away with it eternally because of his sunshiny, hopeful, unbelievably creepy love for her.

The reason I bring up Creepy Dan is this: we made plans when Bubba Ho-Tep first opened in Chicago to see it, but unfortunately she couldn’t make it in that weekend, so she missed it. As luck would have it, the film is still playing — albeit at a different theatre and only a late-showing — so we agreed to see it on Wednesday night, because I have nothing going on Thursday except for that whole Thanksgiving thing.

As luck would not even remotely have it, it’s closing on Tuesday night, and neither of us can make it. I called Lucy to tell her the disappointing news, and she suggested we go Friday. I got the impression at that point that maybe she was mildly drunk, so I just let it go and said, “Uh…yeah,” assuming I’d correct her later and make her feel stupid.

But then she said, “Is it all right if I invite [Creepy] Dan?”

“Uh…” I said, considering my options. My first instict was to shout, “GodDAMMIT, Lucy!” into the phone, which would imply a negative response. But Lucy is trying to make me a better person, which mostly involves not shouting negative things at people (by “people,” she means her). I couldn’t afford a slip-up like that, so I just said, “Uh…” again and hoped she’d take the hint.

“See, he’s really into Elvis stuff, so I thought he’d get a kick out of it,” she said. Gosh, did someone say “creepy”? Now, I enjoy Elvis. If I were in a Quentin Tarantino movie and therefore required to expound at length on my choice between Elvis and the Beatles, I would choose Elvis. I don’t dislike the Beatles; I’ve just never really found their music all that interesting. Not that I rush out to buy Elvis CDs, either, but his musical progression is much more interesting and appealing to me, personally.

But with that said, I’m not “really into Elvis stuff.” I mean, Jesus, all of a sudden I’m imagining Creepy Dan’s velvet-painting diner-sighting bedroom shrine. I’m imagining him in stained underwear, dancing around his room to “Blue Suede Shoes,” masturbating to the poster from Clambake. This is a mental image I don’t need to have. Ever. And I will never forgive Lucy for this.

Anyway, I grunted a couple of times, but then I hit on a good idea: if I just corrected her misconception about how long the movie is playing, then the point would be moot. So that’s what I did, and she seemed pretty disappointed. I’m not sure if it’s because she wanted to see the movie, or if it’s because she somehow wanted Creepy Dan to ingratiate himself with me.

This, of course, would never happen. I have way too many details about the things he’s said and done to prove his misguided love. Even if I ended up not completely disliking him, I’d still never have any respect for him. And this is me, the guy who trolls parents’ night at the elementary school to get a date.

As a consequence of our plans falling through, it’s unlikely that I’ll see Lucy much more during the Thanksgiving holiday. Last night was uneventful, aside from her smoking in my face long enough to note that not only is she harmful to me mentally and emotionally — she’s finally managed to figure out a way to be physically harmful!

Sigh. Will I never win?

Posted by Stan on November 24, 2003 9:18 PM  | Permalink  | Comments (1)  | Friends: Can’t Live with ‘Em

The Girl Who Hates Me Hates Me Less

As I’ve mentioned, this girl Julie can’t stand me. But lately, she’s been somewhat more pleasant. In fact, now she actually talks to me. And when I say something to her, she doesn’t just grunt noncommittally and pretend she’s invisible — I actually get a response!

It makes the job less stressful and irritating, if nothing else.

Also: it’s snowing right now, and the wind is blowing strong, and it’s pretty fucking cold. I know it’s supposed to warm up the rest of the week, but I’m so fucking happy that winter is wedging itself into the city. I love winter!

Posted by Stan on November 24, 2003 1:35 PM  | Permalink  | Comments (0)  | “I’m a living joke!” - Horror Stories from the Workplace

November 22, 2003

Five Albums of the Week

I stole this idea, with what I assume is permission (“And join in if you want,” he says), from Remy (shout-out!). Like me, he’s tired of the Friday Five, so he decided he’d list five songs he’s been listening to over the course of the week.

I’ve decided to up the ante and write about five albums I’ve been listening to over the course of the week. I’m way more anal-retentive than Remy, or anyone else on the planet, so I have a hard time listening to individual songs. I have to listen to the whole album as a cohesive whole, even if the whole album sucks except for one song.

In addition to that, I’m going to summarize my week using anecdotes that pertain to the particular albums.

Read on for my exciting top-five albums of the week…

Bed by Juliana Hatfield (1998, Zoë Records)

For my adaptation class, we had an assignment wherein we were to find a poem, a song, or a piece of artwork that inspired a story in our addled brains. I chose the lyrics for two of the songs on this album (“Swan Song” and “Sneaking Around”) and crafted a story around them. The story is about a woman with borderline-personality disorder. Frustrated by her lover’s inability to commit (he’s married to somebody else), she decides to go to his house and kill herself. It ends on an “up” note, with the man’s wife divorcing him.

When I got my character bio and “six questions” (the who, what, where, when, how, and why for the story) back on Wednesday, my professor snickered at me. She said, “Heh heh, Juliana Hatfield.” I thought I was going to cry and wondered if I should’ve gone with something classier, like T.S. Eliot or the first movement of Beethoven’s third symphony.

I also decided that my professor hates me, although upon further introspection, I realized I actually dislike her inexplicably, so I wish she’d hate me so my dislike can seem justified.

Happy Songs for Happy People by Mogwai (2003, Matador Records)

There’s a long curve on Route 72, as it winds around O’Hare Airport. I like to take it at face-meltingly rapid speeds, although I oftentimes have drivers who don’t cooperate and take it at 30 (the posted speed limit is 45, and a yellow sign suggests we take the curve at 40). A song on this album, “Killing All the Flies,” generally times up perfectly with this curve when I’m on my way home. It builds to an obnoxiously loud, distorted section that, when all is well in the universe, starts just as I reach that curve.

I think that song was also used in the jeans commercial with the people and the buffalo in the street, but it’s been a long time since I’ve seen that commercial, so I’m not positive it’s the same song.

It Means Everything by Save Ferris (1997, Starpool Records)

Lucy made me listen to Save Ferris at first. Most of the stuff she listens to is absolute shit. She vacillates between really bad wannabe-punk, really bad ska, and top-40 shit. Save Ferris, which is an amusing combination of all three of those elements, is the first (and, to date, only) band Lucy has ever played for me that I’ve liked. And I like them a lot, even though when I listened to this album four times this week, I got depressed every single time because I miss Lucy and she hadn’t called me in about two weeks.

I started to get worried about her because she wasn’t returning any of my calls, and knowing how much she loves to talk, something had to be wrong. In addition, she had told me she had gotten very depressed last year around this time. So I talked to Jeff (shout-out!) last night, and he said she seemed to have disappeared. This did not make me feel better.

I thought I’d call her one more time, and if I got her VoiceMail, I’d tell her I was concerned, et cetera, and ask her to call me back. If she didn’t call by Sunday, I’d call her parents and see if they knew what was going on.

Expecting the worst, I placed the call, and to my surprise, she picked up on the second ring and the first words out of her mouth were, “I’m on my way home.”

“Um,” I said, relieved.

“I just left, so I won’t be home until around 9:30,” she said.

She said more stuff, but I was so elated that she wasn’t, for example, dead that I decided to stop paying attention to what she was saying.

After a long pause, “…Stan?”

“Oh, sorry,” I said, “I just blanked out for a second.”

“Yeah, I’m gonna hang up now,” she said, irritated.

“Okay,” I said.

“I’ll call you tomorrow.”

Click.

So, now I can listen to Save Ferris and be merry!

The Execution of All Things by Rilo Kiley (2002, Saddle Creek Records)

I’ve always thought it was interesting how music always brings back chunks of my life that I think I’ve long forgotten. For example, the Foo Fighters album The Colour and the Shape reminds me of one summer in high school, when both the album and Turok for the Nintendo 64had just come out. I borrowed the game from Jeff and played it obsessively, with the sound down, while listening to that album.

And the song “In Bloom” by Nirvana reminds me of fifth-grade, when I asked out this girl I really liked and got my first thrilling taste of rejection. I happened to be listening to that song on my sister’s oversized, late-’80s Walkman when the girl approached me to give me the disheartening news. Ironically, it turned out this girl actually liked me, too, and quite a bit. For awhile, anyway.

It turned out her parents had forbidden her to date, which was the only reason she wouldn’t go out with me, despite my fervent effort (accompanied by all sorts of “ultimate acts of love”). By the time we reached high school, both of us had moved on. Also, she wouldn’t have anything to do with me because I was much lumpier and had Axl Rose hair.

Now, The Execution of All Things reminds me of this last summer, which was equal parts fun and irritation. It makes me feel all ambivalent and want to talk to Gina on the phone.

Punk Débutante by The Cooler Kids (2003, DreamWorks Records)

I can’t explain why I love this album so much. I just do.

I’ve taken to listening to parts of the album immediately preceding my fiction writing class. It puts me in an unbelievably good mood that lasts for most of the four hours.

Fortunately, last Wednesday, I didn’t have to worry because literally three people of our small-to-begin-with class showed up. The rest either claimed to be sick or were MIA. One was working on a play. So, our prof decided to do individual conferences instead of having a standard class session.

Fiction conferences are stranger, longer, and more irritating than other conferences. The way it works is, you start out with general chit-chat, questions about the class or the department, page-count and class progress comments. After that’s out of the way, you spend the bulk of the conference reading your own work. You do this odd thing where you bracket stuff in the story you think “works,” and you leave out all the stuff that doesn’t. Then, you read it aloud and analyze why you think it works. Then, the professor re-brackets what she thinks is working.

Essentially, it boils down to the age-old bad-screenwriter-turned-worse-fiction-writer problem: not enough description or sense of place. She loves my style and humor, but in her words, I need to “slow down.” I shove past the details to get to the story and the dialogue. That’s what screenwriters are taught to do, and I have veered away from fiction over the past year, so during this class I’ve really just been diving back into it.

She pointed out the dates of the three stories she had me read. The worst one was the oldest, and the best one was the newest. She admired that progress and hoped I’d keep it up. She also said she really enjoyed the beginning of my shitty parody, and she told me to pay attention to what I’m doing in the parody. She made me realize the entire point of the parody: by copying the full structure of somebody else’s story, we can teach ourselves to be better writers. This parody has all the details I leave out, and it plays with point-of-view a lot more than I normally would.

So, after half a semester of bitching about this class and how the parody is worthless, I’ve finally figured it out. Funnily enough, I ran into my fiction 1 professor that morning, and we talked about how the parodies help, but you never realize it until long after you’ve finished it.

Posted by Stan on November 22, 2003 10:45 AM  | Permalink  | Comments (0)  | Friday Five/Albums of the Week

November 19, 2003

My Parody

Click here to read my structural parody of Nikolai Gogol’s short story, “The Nose.”

Posted by Stan on November 19, 2003 8:21 PM  | Permalink  | Comments (0)  | Career-Based Rambling

November 18, 2003

Good Fucking Mood

The weather was terrible. I only love rain when it’s accompanied by bitter cold and strong winds. It was pretty warm (for mid-November) today, which made the rain frustrating. I called in from work because I woke up tired and unable to function like a normal human. Plus, I had a tiny conference at 10:20, and I didn’t start work until one, and I really didn’t feel like waiting around. Nor did I feel like driving home in the rain in rush hour.

So, pretty much, I was home at noon and spent the rest of the day doing my homework. One could argue I could have gone to work and gotten paid to do my homework, but it’s not really the same. Work, even though I don’t do anything, is exhausting. I think it’s the mental frustration of being somewhere I don’t want to be without the ability to leave.

Today was pretty dull until about half an hour ago, when Gina called for the first time in a few weeks. My new number, it seems, fell off her caller ID before she could add it to her address book (sure…). We caught up briefly, but she had to go. She mentioned that apparently quite a few people from our class last summer have been asking about me (in a good way). I felt sort of bad about it, because none of the people I’ve seen from that class have asked about her at all. Of course, maybe that’s because they see her more than they do me.

Anyway, Gina calling sorta made my day. I think that may be a bad thing.

Posted by Stan on November 18, 2003 6:45 PM  | Permalink  | Comments (0)  | Random Musings

November 17, 2003

My Day at Work

Today was not a particularly interesting day. I mostly just wrote. I finished the first draft of my screenplay, and I’m nearly done with my parody of Gogol’s “The Nose.”

I worked the desk in the afternoon. The faces are becoming more and more familiar, and that bothers me. I hate it when I get too immersed in my job. It’s usually around the time when I quit. I will start crying if I become known around the film department as “U-Pass man.” I sincerely doubt this will happen, but unlikeliness of it is what’ll make it worth crying over.

Toward the end of the day, some girl kept calling to tell me the progress of getting to the building. She desperately wanted her U-Pass, and she wanted to get there before five. She barely made it — it was 4:56 according to the wall clock, which means it was 4:58 in reality. But she got it, and she was happy.

No hilarious VoiceMails or crying from psychologically deranged, possibly chemically dependent women today. Maybe tomorrow!

Posted by Stan on November 17, 2003 7:54 PM  | Permalink  | Comments (0)  | “I’m a living joke!” - Horror Stories from the Workplace

The Girl at Work Who Hates Me

There’s this girl at work, who I’ve started to call Julie, and she absolutely hates me for no particular reason.

Now, okay, I know you, having read more than one blog entry here, are probably thinking, “But Stan, look at all the things you say and do, and then reevaluate your assessment that she has no reason to hate you. I think you’ll find that there are, in fact, many reasons.”

“But,” I cautiously respond, “I haven’t even had the chance to alienate her yet!”

It’s true. While I’m sure I will have many opportunities in the future to destroy her emotionally, mentally, spiritually, and hopefully physically, I barely know her. We’ve had overlapping shifts maybe twice since I’ve started working there, but every time I’ve ever around — even when I’ve just shown up — she’s all heavy sighs and frustrated grunts.

No big deal. I know I smell.

One Monday, the second time I’d ever met Julie in my life, it was just her and me. It was nine sharp, but the door was locked and nobody was around, so she was sitting outside in the hall, doing homework. I sat across from her, breakfast and coffee in hand. As I spread out my food, she grimaced at me as if I’d just killed her dog and took it upon myself to eat the adorable pet right in front of her. And I hadn’t even disgusted her by beginning to eat yet.

“What’s going on?” I asked, referring to the locked door.

“Like I know,” she said, indicating it was obvious she would be just as ignorant as me. I guess that makes sense.

There was an awkward pause. I began eating, but I decided she needed to like me. It would be fairly excruciating, I decided, if she hated me all the time.

“What are you working on?” I asked.

She looked up at me, frowned, and went back to her work. “History,” she muttered.

“Oh,” I said. I decided not to pursue that line of questioning anymore. Fortunately, before I tried a different approach, Bianca showed up, shouted about nobody being there, and went to get a key.

Things were silent and awkward between us after that, even though I usually only saw her when I was arriving and she was living.

Then, last Thursday, she actually went to the extent of making fun of me behind my back. Except, the thing is, here at this office, there is no “behind my back.” Everything reverberates through the whole office. I hear everything, including but not limited to what happened on Thursday.

See, I was supposed to work the front desk from 9-1, then take an hour, then sit around the back from 2-5. But apparently Gregory was supposed to be the one relieving me, and he wasn’t around. Also, I didn’t know this little nugget of information, so I called the back. I was hoping somebody who didn’t completely hate me, like Bianca, would have picked up.

But no, it was Julie.

“What?” she said tersely. Actually, pretty much everything she says to me is “terse,” so I may as well drop that. Just assume from now on.

“I’m taking lunch; I need someone to cover the front desk,” I said.

“Uh,” she groaned, “we’re all leaving.”

A beat.

“Oh,” I said.

“Yeah,” she said, “I think Gregory’s supposed to be here, but he’s not, so you’ll just have to wait for Jenna to get back.” (Jenna was at lunch and wasn’t expect for another half hour.)

“Okay,” I said.

Really, I didn’t have a problem with this. All I do on my lunch is take a shit, get more coffee, and occasionally run minor errands. It’s not like I was starving, but even if I had been, I wouldn’t have eaten. I planned to just stay at the front desk until Jenna came back.

But then, I heard Julie’s voice wafting up from the back.

“…and he’s all, ‘I’m taking lunch,’” she said, doing a fairly spot-on impression of the drab monotone I refer to as my “I-don’t-care-about-my-job-enough-to-be-pleasant” voice, “and I’m like, ‘Uh, whatever.’”

Which is funny, because in addition to taking on mocking tones while retelling the story to Bianca and Eric, she created the inaccurate illusion that they hadn’t already heard the entire conversation as a back-and-forth.

Bianca took pity on me and relieved me, saying she could wait 15 minutes, during which Jenna should come back, so I could take lunch. I didn’t really care about going, but she took enough pity that she forced me out.

I still find Julie very bizarre. Some of my more rational friends have suggested that maybe she’s an introvert, so my attempts at conversing with her only irritate her and cause her to withdraw more. I can empathize with this, because my paranoia causes me to withdraw from people quite a bit. But even still, I get the hate rays. This isn’t just a casual case of paralyzing fear when it comes to talking — it’s outright, random hatred.

It’s also been suggested that possibly I’ve wronged her, or one of her friends, in one of the many ways I’m known to wrong people, and now that we’re working, we’ve become sworn enemies. Except I haven’t been informed of this anti-bond. Still, that might make sense. Perhaps she knows or knew The Ex, who still haunts me intermittently. Or maybe she knows one of the three people I’ve gone out with since The Ex.

This is part of my problem, though. I don’t care if people don’t like me. I know a vast majority of people don’t like me.

What I can’t stand — absolutely can’t stand — is when I know people don’t like me, but I can’t figure out why. Sometimes, I don’t know, and that’s fine; I don’t go out of my way to be liked by people who may dislike me randomly. But when I know and I can’t figure it out — that’s when the psychological torture comes.

Sigh. I’ll never win.

Posted by Stan on November 17, 2003 7:49 PM  | Permalink  | Comments (2)  | “I’m a living joke!” - Horror Stories from the Workplace

November 15, 2003

Rejection

I received this letter in the mail on Thursday:

November 10, 2003 Chicago, Illinois

Dear Stan:

Thank you for your submission to the Best of Production II Spring and Summer 2003. The films submitted were very strong this semester, and the judges had a difficult time making their selections. Though your film was not accepted for the screening, I want to thank you for your participation and wish you the best of luck with your future work. The Take 1 Festival will be held on Wednesday, November 19, at 6:00 P.M., in Room 302 of the 1004 S. Wabash [sic — it should be 1104] building.

Sincerely,
The Production II Coordinator

I feel pretty ambivalent. In one sense, I feel shot down by the judges. In another sense, I had no idea my film was submitted for selection to begin with. And that means I was one of the top in our particular class, which actually makes me feel good.

I was told I shouldn’t feel bad, and that comedies never do well at Take 1. I always thought it was because the comedies submitted weren’t funny, which may be a precedent that still holds true. The general consensus is that the judges believe that the only films that qualify as “best” are the ones that either have some sort of deep meaning (or the ones that seem like they have some sort of deep meaning) or are very artistic (read: “shitty”).

Oh well.

Posted by Stan on November 15, 2003 5:09 PM  | Permalink  | Comments (0)  | School Rants

November 13, 2003

Why Nobody Ever Answers VoiceMail Questions

Ever since I started going to Columbia, I’ve been leaving VoiceMail messages in the virtual boxes of administrators. I have never, to this date, received a response to any of those messages. I have received responses to personal complaints, but I’m still waiting for them to return my calls. I always wondered why — it’s so easy to hear the VoiceMail, jot down the pertinent information, and return the call.

Then, I got a new responsibility at my job. Once a day, I am to check the VoiceMail. And now, at long last, I understand why nobody ever returns calls.

It’s all about apathy. See, the thing that I don’t think students understand is that most of the people fielding these VoiceMails are student workers. If they call the direct extension of an administrator, they will ignore them because they have more important things to do, or they’ll transfer them to the VoiceMail box of the student workers.

They simply don’t pay me enough to want to bother responding to these people. Honestly, the irate tone does not go a long way with me at $7.00 an hour. I know it’s frustrating to call several different people trying to get answers to no avail; I know it’s frustrating to actually get someone on the phone, only to be transferred to someone else’s VoiceMail; I know it’s frustrating to search the website or the school handbook and find absolutely no information to answer your questions.

I went through the exact same thing, and I sympathize with their plight. But not enough to call them and deal with them. Because I know how they’re going to act, because I was that irate caller for many years. Now I’ve learned, as they will, the many different ways information can be ascertained without resorting to making phone calls.

For example, a girl called today. She sounded ordinarily pleasant and probably attractive (or, at least, the image I conjured was attractive, ahem), but in this particular case she was pissed off. She called to let me have it via a recording. She was angry because she was being charged for a U-Pass that she had never received and never planned to use.

The horror!

Except, oh wait, as is clearly stated in no fewer than three zillion school publications, you are charged and have to pay for the U-Pass fee whether you use it or not. You may as well just get one, people; even if you don’t think you’ll ever use it — and, hell, maybe you won’t — it’s much easier to get it and have it than to not have it and whine when it takes seven to 10 business days to get it after the initial instant-gratification period during the first week of school, or whine when you are being charged for something you don’t have.

I don’t make the rules, and as a $7.00/hour employee on federal work-study, I personally cannot waive the rules. Nor can my immediate superior, nor can her immediate superior. Hell, she could personally beg the college president to waive the fee, and it’s simply not going to happen. Them’s the rules.

It’s not that we don’t sympathize or empathize with the plight of the students (most of us are students ourselves). It’s just that breaking the rules for one person sets a precedent, a very bad precedent. The U-Pass fee is not, has not been, and will not be optional. I’m sure there are logical reasons for this, such as people balking at the $70 fee if they are charged at a later date, but it’s not my place to look for the reasons. It’s just my place to say no.

Or, in this case, to ignore the phone call, which is what I did. I didn’t want to be an asshole, and I’m not really as callous as I portray myself on the ol’ blog. But they really, truly, seriously do not pay me nearly enough money to field calls from enraged people who will get further enraged by my complete inability to help and my stony apathy (which is really just a façade so I can get through tough calls like that).

I’ll hang up on them before they break me. So, let that be a lesson to you all: if you’re going to leave VoiceMails from which you want a response, be as polite as humanly possible. You can ream them all you want when they call you back, but if you attempt to ream them virtually, I can almost guarantee you won’t get called back.

But, hell, don’t even ream the people you call. It probably won’t make you feel that much better, especially when you hear how little we care. Seriously, I feel for the people, but in 99% of the cases I’ve dealt with, there has been literally nothing I could do to help them, so it really doesn’t matter how much they yell and scream; yelling and screaming will not magically solve their problem, and they only get frustrated by my apathy.

People have to do what I do: instead of yelling at people you don’t know without having any effect on them, you have to yell at friends and loved ones. Bring out all the nasty shit they really hate having dredged up, and then watch them squirm. It’ll make you happy when others are also suffering. Trust me.*

End of sermon.

I also fielded a call — not a VoiceMail — today from a girl who lost her U-Pass “five minutes ago,” she said. She wondered how she could go about getting a replacement, so I explained in minor detail what she needed to do, omitting the caveats that make most people angry (the $35 replacement fee and the fact that it will take seven to 10 business days), which I would have ladled on her after she agreed to do the first part (filling out a form and taking it to the CTA office).

She hung up too quickly, though. Worse than that, right after I told her she had to fill out a form and take it to the Merchandise Mart, she said, “Okay, great, I’ll come right over — otherwise, I won’t be able to get home.”

Oh, shit. She thought getting a replacement would be instantaneous. I wasn’t really sure why anybody would be dumb enough to think this, but on the way home, I realized she probably thought all the equipment used during the initial week of U-Pass distribution (the special cameras and printers) were stored in some magical office used for replacements. While this would be a handy method, it is not the reality of the situation. In fact, that equipment belongs to the CTA.

She had hung up before I had a chance to tell her she should secure hotel reservations, as she wouldn’t be going home for seven to 10 business days.

She came into the office about 15 minutes later. I gave her the form, which she filled out on the spot, and I sadly admitted — looking down at the desk the entire time, pretending to be doing paperwork so I wouldn’t have to make eye contact — that not only would it take seven to 10 business days for the replacement to be processed, but it would also cost her $35. I went out on a limb and assumed that if she didn’t have $1.50 to get home, she probably didn’t have $35.

Then, things got horrible. She started crying. Seriously, tears streaming down her face, incoherent jibba-jabba (to paraphrase Mr. T), followed by, “Okay, thanks.” I waited for her to add “FOR NOTHING” in a hostile tone, but she didn’t. Her sobbing diminished as she walked down the hall, and I felt really, incredibly bad.

But still, I had to say what I said. I am not a magician, and even if I was, they don’t pay me enough to perform tricks that cool.

*Special Note: Don’t trust me

Posted by Stan on November 13, 2003 9:58 PM  | Permalink  | Comments (4)  | “I’m a living joke!” - Horror Stories from the Workplace

Creative Nonfiction

Yesterday, we — as a class — went over to a creative nonfiction symposium. It’s Creative Nonfiction Week, so we have a variety of exciting guest speakers and invitations for students to read their own creative nonfiction. For those who don’t know what creative nonfiction is, it’s basically personal essays. I thought about taking one of my blog entries and reading it during the student work open-mic dealie, but they have a one-page double-spaced maximum, so clearly that was out of the question.

As a side-note, the funniest thing that happened yesterday occurred on the elevator. The symposium was in a different building, so our class (we have a small one) got onto the elevator and went down to the first floor (fiction is on the 12th). The elevator stopped on the eighth, and two random guys got on. So, this hilarious guy in my class says to them, “So, you guys into heroin?”

They both sort of chuckled, knowing he was joking, and said, “Yeah,” all sarcastic-like.

There was a well-timed beat, and then the guy from my class continued, “Yeah, I’m more of a vagina man myself.” Which broke us all up and left the two others in confusion.

The symposium was divided into two chunks, the first of which was a reading, explanation, and Q&A for a faculty member who works as a journalist. I found it funny — he did, too — that he was chosen, despite his somewhat hard-news background. He strained to find enough pieces to fill a half-hour of reading, and most of it was filled with self-promotion of his new multimedia “book” about Oak Park.

He had interesting things to say. He was a pretty genial guy, and he did a lot of reporting in South Africa, which immediately piqued and subsequently held my interest. Oddly enough, the weakest part of his li’l lecture deal was the actual reading of his material. We’ve been tormented with reading aloud over and over again in the fiction department, and the argument is that one of these days we’ll be on a book tour (ha!) and we’ll have to read from it. How will we be able to if we don’t practice now?

My argument against that is that people are always able to read their own stuff much more easily than they are others’. Granted, it does still take practice, but if you just rehearse it for an hour or so a day while on the book tour, it would suffice. Of course, the argument against my argument was the guy who got up and read his own work. It was full of stammers and “ums” and mispronunciations and strange intonations because he didn’t really know where his stencnes were going.

As a speaker, he was excellent. He just don’t read good.

We had a brief break, during which I attempted to flirt with one of my classmates. Afterward was a panel discussion about the publishing industry. One of the panelists was the first speaker; the rest were others in the creative nonfiction publishing biz.

None of them had anything interesting to say. Granted, they seemed like pleasant — if a tad self-absorbed — people, but the basic gist of the discussion was: “Send us your work. If we like it, we’ll publish it. If we don’t, we won’t.” Gosh, thank you for that insight into the baffling world of publishing.

I don’t really think I got anything out of the panel, except for one interesting tidbit. Many of them urged struggling (i.e., failing) writers to send their material to university presses. They’re smaller, they don’t pay as well, but you get paid back in exposure. I mean, the book is still published, right? And, in the cases the panelists cited, it led to agents, editors, and big-wig New York publishers beating down the doors of these authors.

That was kinda cool; the rest was fairly worthless. There was a reception afterward, and the girl I had been hitting on instructed me to go because they had this insanely terrific cheese in the buffet spread. I should have gone; that may have been a not entirely subtle hint that she didn’t mind my bumbling attempts at flirtation.

I didn’t go, though. I had other things to do. And you know they were important, because I skipped out on extended flirtation (heh heh, “extended”).

So, basically, that was my Wednesday afternoon. The morning was spent in my adaptation class, defending my assertion that women with borderline-personality disorder often commit suicide by jumping out of high-rise windows and then getting hit by cars just to teach their married lovers a lesson. I think the fundamental confusion came from my classmates confusing borderline-personality with bipolar. I tried to explain the difference, but their brains exploded with feminine rage.

Sigh. When will I win?

Posted by Stan on November 13, 2003 9:31 PM  | Permalink  | Comments (0)  | School Rants

November 11, 2003

Rants

I had this big, pent-up rant in my head this afternoon. It was gonna be all about how, after overhearing the conversation of a group of yuppie assholes, I realized how people are so dependent on machines they barely have any concept of how to use properly, and how that makes me very, very sad and also reminds me of some bad sci-fi. But I got bored with that concept and moved on.

Then, I was going to retell with excruciating detail the story about how this girl came into the office today around 4:15 and rushed off to get a passport photo from Kinkos, hoping she’d get back before 5. I was really attracted to her, as I am to most breathing females, and I hoped she’d show up right at 5, when I was on my way out the door, and then I could ask her to have dinner with me and then strike out.

But then she never showed up again, which is probably because (I’ve been told) Kinkos takes at least an hour to process and develop passport photos. It seems like an unjustifiably long time, since those Kodak photo copiers can spit out a photo-quality color image in about 30 seconds, but what do I know?

I thought of waiting for her for a few minutes after we closed, but then the Big Boss (Jenna wasn’t in today) booted me out (“We don’t pay no overtime” were her exact words). So I was hoping I’d run into this girl downstairs, and then I could be all apologetic and say truthfully that my boss kicked me out and could I make it up to her by buying her dinner, and then I could strike out.

But I didn’t see her. I thought fleetingly maybe I should go down to the Kinkos and make sure everything was all right, but I realized that might be bordering on stalking, so I went home instead.

Then, I thought about ranting about how, for the first time in my life, I look forward to doing homework. I love the work I’m forced to do. But that’s boring.

So I’ll close by saying that on the train today, this nutbar did a 35-minute sermon (seriously, it was preacher-style) on the specific phrasing of the marriage vows and how they should be reevaluated to ensure a happy marriage. Several times, I wanted to laugh at this guy. He was hilarious — he was doing a one-man show, dropping low for the preacher voice, going up high for the wife voice, and the shit he was saying was cracking me up.

But laughing would only encourage him to ask me for money, and I couldn’t have that. So I remained silent.

Traffic was light today; a lot of people were off for Veteran’s Day.

Posted by Stan on November 11, 2003 10:00 PM  | Permalink  | Comments (3)  | “I’m a living joke!” - Horror Stories from the Workplace

November 10, 2003

EVERYBODY IS GOING TO DIE!, or: Emergency Evacuation

I started working the front desk at one o’clock. I was late because I was only supposed to take a half hour for lunch since I start at 10 now instead of 9, and I had shit to do.

Anyway, I got a weak-ass wireless signal and fucked around online for awhile, but then a really loud, intermittent buzzing sound came from the hall.

“Is that the fire alarm?” Jenna asked me, the person who has been working in this building for two weeks.

“Um,” I replied.

“It’s the fire alarm,” she answered for me. “Grab your stuff, get out of here, we’ll meet downstairs.”

I grabbed my coat and bag and ran downstairs. Or, rather, I meandered downstairs. There was sort of a backlog. I found it funny that nobody actually knew what had happened to cause the fire alarm to go off, so they naturally assumed it was a drill and sauntered out of the building as slowly as possible.

Meanwhile, I was in panic mode. I was freaking out, wondering why the hell nobody was moving — were the doors obstructed? Dear God, we were all going to die, trapped in a stanky-ass stairwell!

And suddenly, I was outside.

“Step away from the building!” shouted the security guard, motioning that we either had to cross the street or go to either end of the block.

I went down to the end of the block, the Balbo side. I figured that it was a bomb scare. We’ve had them before in that building, and it’s midterm season. I’ll point out that this particular building seems to receive the most frequent number of bomb threats, especially during big-test times, and that, not at all coincidentally, this building houses the majority of our art school’s math and science classrooms. And I’ll just let that poorly structured sentence hang there for you all to mull over.

I decided to do what I always do in what I consider a crisis situation — and I consider small insects in the house to be a “crisis situation” — I called Lucy.

And she didn’t answer. She has a habit of doing that lately. It’s possible she hates me again. It wouldn’t surprise me.

I thought I might get off early. The last time there was a bomb threat, they said it’d go off between two and five (most of our classes are three hours — coincidence?). Unfortunately, this turned out to be a mere fire drill, so we were let back inside shortly after everyone evacuated.

Oh well. It’s still midterms, so who knows what’ll happen throughout the rest of the week?

Posted by Stan on November 10, 2003 9:14 PM  | Permalink  | Comments (0)  | “I’m a living joke!” - Horror Stories from the Workplace

Recognition

A girl came into the office today. I recognized her as having come in last week, looking for her U-Pass. She recognized me, too. I could tell because she sighed with heavy frustration. I am not the most compassionate employee, and I figured she didn’t particularly want to deal with me yet again.

It was strange, though, because she acted like I should remember everything about her. I did recall her face, and I remembered her name once she told it to me, but it wasn’t all there. Should it have been? They don’t pay me enough to remember people. But she was acting sort of shocked and irritated that I had totally forgotten. Fortunately, her U-Pass was in; if it hadn’t been, I’d wager she would have thrown some form of shit-fit.

Funnily enough, after work I ran into a girl I haven’t seen in about 18 months. We had a class together, and we went out once. It didn’t go well. I saw her, she saw me; at first, I didn’t recognize her. She’s grown her hair out a bit, and she had an unusual sallow look on her face. When I knew her, she was all smiles. I bet the weight of the world has crushed her spirit, too.

I don’t think she recognized me, either. For all the weight I’ve taken off in the last few months, I still am huskier than I was a year and a half ago. And my hair is long enough to be considered “shaggy.” I admit I need a haircut; I’m just too lazy to get one. Or to shave. And I’ve been wearing a baseball cap. I sort of look like Michael Moore’s illegitimate son, which is not really a look any person should strive for.

At any rate, we both did an amusing double-take at the exact same time. We were also both in a hurry and possibly embarrassed about our last, near-fatal encounter (i.e., our date). She nodded at me in acknowledgement, then looked down at the floor and headed toward the elevators. I did the same and left the building.

In summary, today wasn’t too bad.

Posted by Stan on November 10, 2003 8:53 PM  | Permalink  | Comments (0)  | “I’m a living joke!” - Horror Stories from the Workplace

November 9, 2003

LiveJournal Syndication

For the three of you who are wondering, I have canceled my synidcation on LiveJournal because it requires more effort than I am willing to expend on something that’s nothing more than a mirror of this site on a server that’s less reliable and has an asstastic interface.

I checked into ways of making the interface not suck balls, but the only way is to pay the folks at LiveJournal money. I won’t be doing that. Ever.

Posted by Stan on November 9, 2003 5:36 PM  | Permalink  | Comments (0)  | Random Musings

Friday Five…on Sunday?

Friday Five (special thanks to Rip for reminding me)

1. What food do you like that most people hate?
   White cheddar Cheez-Its. Seriously, I don’t even know why they still exist. I am the only person on the planet who enjoys them. And they make me ill, too, but I love them (and eat them) anyway.
2. What food do you hate that most people love?
   Shitty pizza.
3. What famous person, whom many people may find attractive, is most unappealing to you?
   I’m not sure anybody actually finds her attractive, or if they’re just faking it, but Julia Roberts is pretty hideous.
4. What famous person, whom many people may find unappealing, do you find attractive?
   Jane Kaczmarek. Yeah, I know.
5. What popular trend baffles you?
   A recent trend among female hairstyles that dictates they must gel their hair so it sticks out all odd and spiky-like. It looks vaguely like bedhead, but more like the spooge hair-gel scene in There’s Something About Mary. I have no idea why so many women have adopted this hairstyle, since the only person it’s ever looked good on is Alyson Hannigan.

Posted by Stan on November 9, 2003 3:07 PM  | Permalink  | Comments (0)  | Friday Five/Albums of the Week

November 8, 2003

Expectations

My week, filtered through visits to Dunkin’ Donuts.

Monday

Called in sick. Actually was sick. Didn’t leave house.

Tuesday

Rained. Got off at Adams Street with the mindset that I’d walk down to 11th. I’m a tub of shit, so I usually walk up and down Wabash on my lunch break and/or take the long way to the subway station on either LaSalle Street or Clinton (depending on how tired I am or how fast I want to get home).

On Tuesdays, I don’t get a lunch and I have to zip right to work after class, so I figured I’d get off at Adams, stop at the Dunkin’ Donuts there (which I’ve blogged about before) for coffee/breakfast, and then walk down to the film building.

When I got off the train, though, I realized that it was now pouring and I was poorly dressed for the weather. But I was off the train, so I figured I may as well get my coffee and donuts, then catch the next train down to Roosevelt Road.

So, class passed. We watched most of The Godfather. Our professor planned the day poorly. We have a three-hour class length, the movie is three hours, and he started it 20 minutes into the session and had to end it 20 minutes early so we could discuss some things and set up times for individual conferences. I was frustrated, because The Godfather is damn good, and I haven’t seen it in awhile. And I don’t own it because I’m cheap.

Afterward, I made a pit-stop at my usual Dunkin’ Donuts, on Wabash near Roosevelt (about a block and a half away), before going to work.

There are three employees who work the morning shift. I’ve gotten to know them all. Two out of the three have started giving me extra shit for free, just for existing. The third very stoically gives me exactly what I order. The third guy pisses me off, though I don’t really know why. I ask for two donuts; he gives me two donuts. Should I really be expecting a freebie?

I think harsh things about him, and then I feel guilty about it because what the fuck — if I wanted three donuts, I should ask for three and pay for three. Also, I don’t want three, but I don’t feel guilty about consuming a third when technically I only asked for and paid for two. It doesn’t officially count.

I think part of the reason why this guy doesn’t give me free stuff, even though usually he’s pretty nice to me (in a stoic, masculine way) and knows my ordering habits and occasionally engages me in small-talk when there’s a lull in business, is because he’s a manager. I’m not positive that he’s a manager, because there’s nothing that really separates him from the rest of them. But I’ve worked retail, so I’m fully aware that there usually isn’t anything that separates managers from grunts except longer lunches, the fact that they work full-time, and the fact that they occasionally sit around in a back office pretending to do paperwork so they can avoid customer interaction.

This guy is an asshole to the other employees, and he orders them around all the time. He has this assertive, commanding presence, like he’s the President of Dunkin’ Donuts-land.

He has “manager” written all over him.

When I went there after my class, a fourth employee — who I don’t really know as well, since I hardly ever go there in the afternoons — was standing with the guy who never gives me free stuff. I got my large coffee, and as the fourth employee got it, the guy said to me, “You were not here this morning.”

Pangs of guilt set in. It’s not unusual; I feel guilty about everything, whether I should or not. I didn’t really have a lie prepared; hell, I didn’t really need to lie at all, but I felt it necessary. I get the impression that saying I stopped at a different franchise would break this guy’s heart.

Fortunately, I’m pretty good at coming up with white lies on-the-fly, so I said, “Yeah, I was running late this morning, so I had to get to class.” A plausible lie for someone who doesn’t know me particularly well. Plus, it was raining, which makes everyone late everywhere since nobody knows how to fucking drive, so they panic as soon as something might affect their ability to control a car while talking on a cell phone and applying make-up.

But the guy stared at me. He totally wasn’t buying it. I thought briefly that maybe, just maybe, he had timed his cigarette break exactly when I was emerging from the Roosevelt Road train station. From his vantage point in front of the Dunkin’ Donuts, he probably would’ve been able to see me. And, like I say, I’m pretty hefty, so even from that distance, he’d probably recognize me.

I remained silence. No point in elaborating on a lie, especially when he knew I wasn’t being honest. The woman gave me my coffee; I paid and scurried off to work.

Wednesday

Went there in the morning. Got free donut.

Went there in afternoon. I need coffee before fiction writing; otherwise, I’ll fall asleep and/or commit suicide. All I ordered was a coffee, so naturally I got a bag full of Munchkins from one of the women who gives me free shit.

As I was about to leave, though, the other guy came out and started yelling at her in a foreign language. I decided what he was saying was, “Don’t give him free stuff! He betrayed us!”

Thursday

Full work day.

Adams/Wabash in the morning.

Washington/Wabash at lunch.

No free shit.

Friday

Roosevelt/Wabash in the morning. Free chocolate glazed, which was cool because I ordered two standard glazed, but the other free-stuff guy knows what I like. Variety is the source of wit. Or, wait, I think I got that wrong.

No afternoon work, and no need for more coffee; I just went home.

Posted by Stan on November 8, 2003 12:42 PM  | Permalink  | Comments (0)  | Random Musings

November 6, 2003

Staff Meeting

First things first: I did get an iBook, and I am now taking it to work. But it can only connect to a wireless network (and when it does, only barely) when I’m working the front desk. I get no access in the back office. As I’ll explain in a bit, we now have scheduled time at the front desk, and I don’t have much of it. This is a blessing in the sense that I don’t have to deal with any actual people for the majority of my shifts, but a curse for my loyal and devoted fan, because I cannot blog from work.

So, compromise time: I’ll probably draft entries in MS Word from work and post them when I get home. The operative word, though, is “probably.” I got a lot of actual work done today, which was the purpose of investing in a laptop to begin with, and I plan to continue to get a lot of actual work done. Hopefully I won’t be too tired to blog when I get home in the evening.

We’ll see how it works out.

And now, on with the show…

I have a full, nine-to-five day on Thursdays. As I had been told last week but promptly forgot, we had a staff meeting scheduled at 11. Now, see, here’s how the hierarchy works here: there are student workers, then there’s Jenna, and then there are the actual workers. Jenna, like us, is a student. She just happens to be doing the work-full-time-take-night-school-classes-for-free deal that a lot of people do. The othersare actual college graduates who are, I assume, not working in their chosen vocations.

This particular meeting was for the student workers only. It was hosted by Jenna, who brought sort of frightening looking bagels and individual bottles of orange juice. Fortunately, I’d eaten breakfast and had a few cups of coffee. I was not hungry nor thirsty; rather, I had to shit and piss. (See, I used swear words. Comedy!)

In addition to myself and Jenna, the meeting was attended by Bianca, Gregory, and Eric. Two other student workers, who I don’t believe I’ve mentioned in any meaningful fashion, didn’t show up.

The first I’m going to call Julie. This name is an amusing inside joke that will be understood only by myself and one other person, who doesn’t read this blog. Sigh. The second I’m going to call Oh Face, since he’s a dead ringer for the “‘Oh’ Face” guy in Office Space.

So, Jenna started the meeting with this: “This, right here, is exactly what’s wrong with this office.”

We all looked around at each other, confused. We are not intelligent people.

“Everybody was scheduled to be here right now,” she finally explained. “Two people are not. What is wrong with this picture?”

She had a point. She went on to explain that tardiness is her biggest problem with the current state of the office. She has no objection to outright absences, not even excessive absences, as long as we call first. We’re the ones who are losing the money there, and it’s no skin off her back if she is aware of it.

The problem is the excessive lateness of the majority of the student workers. I’m not a problem, because I am compulsively early to everything, so I’ve never been late once, and unless there are dire circumstances, I never will be. Everybody else, though, is late pretty much all the time. Including Jenna, who admitted that immediately after admonishing everyone.

Among her other problems: excessive phone usage. We have an unsophisticated phone system. We don’t have call waiting, so when people sit on the phone in the back, how does somebody call from the front? And vice-versa. I’ve noticed this problem, too. Again, I have no friends or loved ones, so I don’t receive any personal calls at work. I’m exempt from this problem.

Cell phones are a problem, too. She’s sick of the annoying ringers, for one thing (aren’t we all?), but she’s also tired of people having drawn-out phone conversations. This line of reasoning I don’t really follow. I understand it if there’s actual work to be done, but there usually isn’t. Why can’t somebody have a phone conversation on their own phone when there’s downtime?

But, again, I have no friends, and even so my cell phone’s on vibrate, so no trouble from me.

Another problem from which I am exempt: visitation from friends. Now, my blond friend has said on a few occasions she might pop in on occasion, but that has not happened so far, and now I guess it can’t happen. And, damn, I finally wanted to prove to the other employees that I’m not a complete social misfit; I’m just a partial social misfit with friends who pity me.

Lastly, Jenna said, “If you break something — just say something. Accidents happen, and nobody’s here to blame anything on anyone.”

I immediately thought about the computer, which I broke and which is still out of commission. Now, I did admit that I broke it, but I claimed I was unaware of how it broke. This is a lie; I know exactly how it happened. And I was about to crack while she laid the guilt-trip speech on us.

But I didn’t. If I had, I’m sure there would have been no repercussions aside from the pat “don’t download software.” Still, I thought it best to keep my mouth shut. I also thought it best to turn beet red and sweat profusely. I do this a lot, though; I don’t think anyone noticed.

The final thing: the computer in the back, the one that still works (the fact that I don’t use it is probably the only reason for that), is loaded up with spyware. Everybody is aware of it, and everybody deals with it, but nobody knows how to get rid of it. Jenna suggested that we simply don’t download anything and hope it goes away.

I came close to suggesting they download Ad-Aware, but recalling what happened to the previous computer, I decided maybe that would be a bad idea. Plus, if and when the IT guy ever comes to fix the computer, he’ll find Ad-Aware and evidence of the damage it caused, and they’ll put two and two together and know I was the one who installed and ran the program.

So, again, I said nothing.

Then, Jenna unveiled a new point system. Apparently, point systems are a new (or possibly old) fad in the retail industry. Write-ups are an old, time-tested method of destroying employees’ careers. We have write-ups at my job; three write-ups equal a firing. But now we have points, Jenna explained. We start out with zero, and for each infraction we get a point. When we reach five, we get a write-up and go back to zero. Then, it starts over again until we finally get fired.

In short, we have 15 chances before we get fired instead of three.

“This is outrageous!” we, as a contiguous whole, exclaimed.

Gregory said, “At the Gap, you get eight points.”

“Fine,” Jenna immediately caved, “you can have eight.”

“And they get 10 at Old Navy,” Gregory continued.

“You can have eight,” Jenna repeated.

So, eight it is. Furthermore, we get two tardies a week before a point is taken away. And we get a 10-minute window before we’re actually considered tardy. And we get exemptions for various emergency situations.

In short, nothing has changed.

Okay, some things have changed: now we have assigned front-desk time. I’d thought about suggesting something like this, because it seemed like I was working the front a disproportionate amount of the time while I was on duty. I didn’t want to step on any toes, though, but perhaps Jenna noticed it, too. Basically, I only work the front desk from nine to one on Mondays, three to five on Tuesdays, and one to five on Thursdays. Which didn’t seem like much, but now that I think about it, it’s about as much as I’ve been working it.

So much for proportionality.

In addition to front-desk assignments, each of the workers has a specific task that they must perform to keep the office running as smoothly as possible. My specific task is to check the VoiceMail at least once whenever I’m on duty. I hope I can handle it. Although, because Oh Face never showed up, I ended up tackling his new duty of shredding paper and getting dozens of tiny papercuts all over my hands.

The good news, though, is that I wrote about 23 pages of my screenplay over the course of the day. This, for those out of the know, is approximately how much I’m able to write — in total, including work for other classes — in a week, pre-iBook.

In summary: laptops change lives, and I have papercuts.

Posted by Stan on November 6, 2003 9:52 PM  | Permalink  | Comments (0)  | “I’m a living joke!” - Horror Stories from the Workplace

November 3, 2003

Cingular Cigh

Okay, so I’m on the Cingular family plan with my parents. I thought it’d be a really good idea because it’d cost me $10 a month and I’d get an assload more minutes (600 anytime, 5000 nights and weekends, and they roll over, as opposed to non-rolling-over 250 anytime and 1000 nights and weekends for $40).

But it’s a really, really bad idea to share a cell phone plan with your parents.

“Why?” you, my one and only fan, ask. You’re genuinely confused, as indicated by your single arched eyebrow and furrowed forehead. Plus, you’re a 28-year-old loser who still lives with his parents and mooches nearly everything off of them, including your phone service. (That’s right, my only fan is me, reading back on my archives six years later while burping and most likely scratching my crotch. So nothing’s changed.)

The answer is simple: my mother is pure evil. We all know she hates Lucy with a furious passion, so it comes to no surprise that she also doesn’t like me talking on the phone with her. Which I do. A lot. Usually on the weekends, but also a lot while I’m at school.

Now, for those of you who don’t know — I intentionally decided not to blog about it — last week, Lucy was in a car accident. Nothing serious, but she had a minor spinal injury and was put on some exciting loopy medication. We talked on Tuesday, and she explained what happened and then fell asleep. And then I called her back later and she almost fell asleep again.

Then she told me not to call her anymore. She said she’d call me when she was feeling better. Why’d she do that? Because I have a tendency to overreact to things, and then to freak out. She explained that, while she was recuperating, she thought it best to not have someone calling her every 30 minutes and explaining the many different ways she was probably going to die as a result of her insignificant back pain.

This is an overwhelmingly accurate assessment of my behavior during what I deem a “crisis situation,” and for the record, I deem a spider on the ceiling a “crisis situation.”

So, when Lucy called me today, I lunged onto my cell phone with the fervor and raw sexual power of a rabid pit bull. I would have — and, for the love of God, should have — been at work, but I took the day off because I’m not feeling well and they don’t pay me enough to come in sick. I was home; my mom was home. Lucy called and ruined everything.

I picked up the phone and started talking to her. As always when I’m on the phone in my house, I spoke in hushed tones because I maintain my mother still eavesdrops on my phone conversations, despite her protests to the contrary. I also remained as monosyllabic as possible. Fortunately, Lucy’s a talker. A big talker, so it’s really not difficult to let her carry an entire conversation without having actually said a word to her.

But there were things I wanted to say to her. I had told her some things, and I wanted to elaborate, and I can’t do it at school because the film department is an orgy of rumor and innuendo, and I can’t do it at home because my mother is evil. Usually, I end up sitting in my car and talking to her. It’s a sad, horrible life, the one I lead.

So, my mother, aware I was on the phone, started parading around my room, under the guise of dusting. Seriously, how transparent can you be? Especially when I’m in charge of dusting my room. Before she left, she said, very loudly, “DON’T USE UP ALL OUR MINUTES.”

I said, “I won’t,” in whiny, emo tones.

“What?” Lucy asked, and then dismissed it and continued talking about her lighting project.

Noticing that I wasn’t planning on getting off the phone any time soon, my mother stalked out of the room. A short time later, she arrived in the bathroom — we have a half-bath that adjoins my room and my parents’ room, and yes, it’s as weird as it sounds — and decided to take the opportunity to wash her hands and brush her teeth. Normally, she closes the door so she doesn’t bug me (it doesn’t work), but knowing I was on the phone and knowing she wanted me off, she let the door hang open. I could hardly hear Lucy, but it didn’t really matter that much since I didn’t know who or what the hell she was talking about, anyway.

When that tactic didn’t work, she decided to simply stand in the doorway and stare at me for at least a full minute before shaking her head in what I imagine was disgust and then walking away. I pretended to ignore her the entire time.

A few minutes later, I got off the phone. I cut the conversation off early because I still wasn’t feeling well, so I wasn’t in the mood to talk (or, rather, to listen). Also, I was irritated by my mother’s nonverbal haranguing, so I wanted to get on the phone so I could fight with her. Also, I’d only been on the phone for 10 minutes. I could understand her bitching if I’d been on with Lucy for an hour or more, but what the fuck? Ten fucking minutes.

So, blah blah blah, same old shit, “Don’t waste all the minutes,” “I’m not,” “Yeah, you are,” “I only talk for a long time on the weekend or at night,” “That’s a lie,” “No, it’s not!”

Believe it or not, she actually got out the last billing statement and checked it.

“Ah-ha!” she shouted, having found the evidence she needed to convict me of the crime of having friends. “Fifty-nine minutes!”

“When?” I asked.

“Um…it was a Sunday,” she explained sheepishly. “But here — thirty-seven minutes! Also on a Sunday.”

“Are there any calls longer than 20 minutes that I didn’t make on a Sunday?”

“Well, there’s this call — 28 minutes, on a Tuesday,” she said. “To your sister.”

I actually won a fight. I’m glad the new bill hadn’t shown up yet, because I’ve actually spent a lot of time talking to Lucy on weekdays at school. I suppose I’ll cross that bridge when I get to it, though.

In the meantime, I really think it’s time to find somewhere else to live.

Posted by Stan on November 3, 2003 9:52 PM  | Permalink  | Comments (1)  | Family: The Horror…

November 1, 2003

One Time Lucy Thought She Was Dating a Tranny

About a year and a half ago, Lucy dumped her longtime boyfriend and decided it would be a good idea to fail at some relationships before getting back together with him. She went on a few dates with random guys before settling on some guy. Let’s call him Rufus, for a nice Bill & Ted reference.

Here’s the thing: she met Rufus online. She didn’t want to tell me that, because when she first broached the subject of “messing around” on match.com during a free trial, I warned her against the pure, unmitigated evil that lurks on the Internet. Trust me, I know all about [not work-safe — or, for that matter, human-eye-safe, you wusses] that. Lucy’s ordinarily a lot smarter than me, but sometimes she can be pretty naïve.

So, she told me she met this guy through a friend. I knew the friend in question; he worked as a server at Bennigans, where we spent the overwhelming majority of our time, so I saw him quite a bit. And that’s when her tangled web unraveled. She was worried about this new guy being a bit too needy, and she expressed as much to both myself and our server friend.

He called during dinner, while the server happened to be at the table. “Oh, is that that guy?” he asked.

“Uh, yeah,” she said.

“Where’d you meet him again?” he asked.

Lucy looked at him, then looked at me, then looked back at him. “Oh shit,” she was thinking.

“Um,” she said, “online.”

At this, the server laughed uproariously. I would have laughed uproariously, too, except I was too busy being enraged. Honestly, meeting a guy online — it’s stupid, yes, but it’s not a big deal to me. I would have made fun of her nonstop, but she was really worried that I’d get pissed off, overreact, and then say hostile things. So she lied to me. And then when I found out, I got pissed off, overreacted, and then said hostile things.

Two weeks later, when we resumed speaking with one another, we met again at Bennigans. Lucy was concerned about Rufus. They’d been spending a great deal of time together, and Lucy was starting to believe that Rufus not entirely male. She believed, actually, that he used to be a she and was in the process of changing genders.

“Why would you say that?” I wondered.

She had a number of reasons. The first, and most obvious, was that Rufus sounded like a woman. She played me some VoiceMails, and I can confirm the femininity in the voice. I don’t like to brag, or even really to compliment anyone in any way, but I know quite a bit about how the human voice works in both males and females, and I can pretty much tell insantly whether somebody is a male or female, even if they’re doing some sort of hilarious voice. It’s eerie but true, and I can say I was 95% sure Rufus was a woman based solely on his voice.

Another reason, which for some would have been a dead give-away, is that his friends referred to him with feminine pronouns. Not exactly subtle, right? When Lucy asked Rufus about this bizarre thing, he told her some story about how, when he was a kid he did something that made them all believe he was a woman, so now, more than a decade later, they still use feminine pronouns when referring to him. Or her.

Furthermore, Rufus looked androgynous. One could not tell by looking at him what specific gender he might have belonged to. Granted, the same could be said for quite a few people, but when you combine the many other reasons and then say, “Oh, and he looks genderless,” it sort of solidifies things.

Also, Rufus had a wide variety of medical problems. I had no idea what the specifics were, but I am aware that when people undergo sex-change operations, there are often a lot of complications, and even when there aren’t complications in the process itself, there are serious health risks. It’s just not really an awesome idea to change genders, to be frank.

…not that I’ve researched it at all.

And the final, most disturbing (if not most damning) hunk of evidence was Rufus’s overly stiff, somewhat unrealistic manhood. Now, the farthest Lucy had gone with Rufus at this point was a lot of kissing and rubbing, which generally makes the male of the species aroused (in my experience, the woman is usually bored). But Lucy liked to point out that it seemed like Rufus was aroused all the time. Which, ordinarily, is a good quality in a man, especially if he is in the porn industry.

Not when it feels like a wooden stick, though. Lucy described the unrealistic feel, the bizarre angle at which the prop-penis was positioned, and the fact that it was essentially immobile. It just hung there like a coat-rack, defying gravity.

I decided it would be a good idea for Lucy to set up a sting operation that in some way involved actual physical access with the unit. It was the only way to be sure, once and for all, what gender this person was.

Lucy decided, rightfully, that I am an idiot. She took a better course of action and broke it off (fake-penis-related pun intended). She consciously avoided him, and he called her constantly. That was another thing: he was (and this is her claim, not mine) needy like a woman. Men, she postulated, don’t obsess over women. They simply accept it and move on to their next conquest.

Random aside: Now, with her having formed an opinion like that about men, can you see why I almost always hate the guys she dates?

Anyway, eventually he stopped calling. I assume. She never talks about him anymore, so if he does, I don’t know about it.

In case you hadn’t noticed, this is a cautionary tale. Online dating services are very, very, very, very bad. The only tried and true method for meeting your perfect spouse is to hang around in bars and hope somebody will get drunk enough to sleep with you.

Posted by Stan on November 1, 2003 3:00 PM  | Permalink  | Comments (5)  | Classic Issues, Friends: Can’t Live with ‘Em

Old Friend

After script analysis, I ran into a guy from my production class, John Q. Average American. He’s about the nicest guy in the world, and I hardly ever see him, so it was kinda cool that he happened to randomly be there while I was frantically checking my phone for missed calls.

“Where are you headed?” he wondered.

“Home,” I said.

“Oh.” He sounded disappointed.

“Why?” I asked.

“I was just gonna get some lunch,” he said, and I promptly agreed to go with him. It’s not like I actually had anything to do; I was just going home because class was over and I didn’t have to work.

So, it was cool. We sorta caught up and shot the shit and so on. I told him about the horrors of fiction II, and he told me the horrors of his optical printing class.

He invited me to a Halloween party I’d already been invited to but had no intention of going to, and he talked about how he always wanted to be a foot for Halloween because he thought it’d be really funny, but he never bothered to get the costume together.

This brought up Double Dare. Remember that giant foot that oozed green slime reminiscent of foot fungus? Which led me to the ultimate Halloween foot-costume pick-up line: “Hey, baby, how would you like to take the physical challenge?” This led Average to declare it the ultimate all-purpose pick-up line. He found it surprising that I have so much trouble with women. He must not read my blog.

That, of course, led him to the ultimate revelation of the day: I guess Marc Summers, the affable host of Double Dare has obsessive-compulsive disorder and is absolutely obsessed with cleanliness. I wondered if the OCD was mild at first but worsened by Double Dare, or if it was always bad but he was so desperate for work that he took the hosting gig despite his disorder. This led me to conclude that it’d be an interesting character to write about, so I put him in the stock of “weird screenplays based on real-life people” next to composer Robert Schumann and the adult-film director who tries to gain legitimacy by directing a children’s film.

He’s on work-study, too. He got a job in the production II lab, which made me obscenely jealous because he gets to work with the lab assistant. It turns out, he claims, that the job listings posted for the work-study are misleading, and you can pretty much get a job anywhere, whether they post a listing or not. This frustrated me, because I would’ve much rather worked in the production II lab than the activities office.

The good news, though, is that I have an excuse to visit that lab whenever the hell I want to. That lab assistant will soon be under my thrall.

In all, the lunch made me feel better about things. I had a really shitty week, and I’ve been pretty depressed about certain secret, horrible things. And, in fact, I was really depressed yesterday morning, to the degree that I contemplated leaving class.

I hadn’t seen Average in awhile, so he had a lot of amusing observations and so on that he hadn’t expressed to me. He also let me know that, apparently, I’m known among his circle (and others) as The Writer. Not a writer, but The Writer. Somehow, everybody is looking forward to scripts and stories I write, films I make, et cetera. I don’t have any idea why or how this happened, but it’s nice to know.

Plus, I sort of ended the week on an “up” note.

Posted by Stan on November 1, 2003 11:32 AM  | Permalink  | Comments (0)  | Friends: Can’t Live with ‘Em

November 29, 2003

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving was dull this year. For a lot of deep-seated personal issues that burst violently to the surface a couple of years ago, our extended family no longer gathers to have a huge Thanksgiving feast. In fact, our extended family no longer really gathers at all, except at Christmas. We are required by law to appease the young’ns, despite the fact that nobody ever buys them anything they want (trust me, I was a young’n once, too — I know the look of somebody who is disappointed in his brand new sweater or her personally engraved Leatherman).

So, Thanksgiving was just me and my parents, as usual. My sister couldn’t get time off, so she didn’t even come home. Consequently, there were no fights or extended periods of food-flinging. How unfortunate.

I went out with Lucy on Wednesday night. We drove around for awhile and mostly sat in silence. It was late, I was pretty tired after having class all day, and she demanded that I stay home and sleep. I refused on the grounds that, since she decided to go home on Friday, I wouldn’t have a chance to see her again. I’m not really sure that inhaling her second-hand smoke in silence improves much on not seeing her at all, but in my own warped way, I believe it does.

I promised I’d call her on Thanksgiving to rescue her, however briefly, from her family. I didn’t call her, and I feel kinda guilty about it, even though I’m sure she didn’t care.

Posted by Stan on November 29, 2003 11:30 AM  | Permalink  | Comments (3)  | Friends: Can’t Live with ‘Em