One Small Step

*As overheard by me tonight, sitting next to a booth of 5 Irishmen, in the Blue Bayou.

Irish Guy 1

Did you know Louis Armstrong died two days after his 71st birthday? Says so right there on the wall.

Irish Guy 3

Who's Louis Armstrong?

Irish Guy 2

He was an astronaut, stupid!

Irish Guy 3

That was Neil Armstrong, idiot!

Irish Guy 2

You don't know who the hell Louis Armstrong is, and I'm the idiot?

Irish Guy 4

Walked on the moon, didn't he?

Irish Guy 1

Nah, he played the trumpet!

Irish Guy 4

On the moon?

(Okay Okay Okay, so I made up the bit about playing the trumpet on the moon! It made me laugh when the dudes were coming down on #3 for not knowing Louis Armstrong, and then #4 confused him with an astronaut.)

Can I Buy A Damn Vowel?

I can't believe it! Vanna White is still doing Wheel of Fortune and she's hot as ever, well, as hot as a 48 year old woman can be.

Amazing! I get bored with a job after a few months. I can't imagine being at a place for 3 years let alone 23 years! How can she still be doing it? All she does is turn the tiles, blocks, lights, whatever! (Maybe it was an old rerun.) Don't get me wrong, I'm sure she's a great person, I know life's hard for everyone, and yes, I heard she used to rent Leer Jets in her off time. I'll be honest, I'd love it if I stumbled upon that iinfamous Playboy Issue. Vanna White still strutting her stuff on Wheel Of Fortune. Vanna. Vanna White...

Now I've got that song stuck in my head...

Doctor, won't you tell me, am I going insane?

Was it something I ate, or something wrong with my brain?

See, I'm naked in church when I meet a dinosaur.

Try to run, but my feet have been nailed to the floor.

Then a midget pushes me through a revolving door,

And I'm back in the very same place I was before.

I'm stuck in a closet with Vanna White.

I'm stuck in a closet with Vanna White.

Night after night after night after night.

All right!

*Weird Al Yankovic's Stuck In A Closet With Vanna White

Yeah, I wish.

A Sharp & D Flat

So noone else thought it was weird. Our final project for the class is given out less than two hours before it's due and, granted, it was a basic music skills class but my subconscious registered that it was indeed a dream and I hadn't attended the class in nine years. It was fun to be back on the campus of my first college and see friends whom I hadn't seen in years. It was cool because I was attending classes as I am now.

Anyway, for the final project the class is split into two groups of five, given a song on sheet music and expected to perform the song for the professor and an audience. One person is selected to play the piano while the other members of the group merely have to sing along. I was selected to play the piano because as a child I took several years of lessons, and it was assumed I'd been paying attention in class. I hadn't.

I have a little over an hour to relearn how to play the piano and pull off a successful cover of, what in my dreams was probably a song by Chicago; I can't remember which one, the assigned music and fool my professor into passing me. So try to study. I try to will myself through the obstacle course of whole notes, quarters notes, scales, etc. I try my best but I have the feeling it's going to be a disaster.

Flash forward to the class final. Group A takes the stage. The piano player, obviously a ringer, starts to tickle the ivories and the song flows out of Group A effortlessly. Beautiful. Well rehearsed. Different! Something sounded different about the song than when I played it. OH NO! I quickly scan the sheet music and realize that I had completely overlooked all of the A Sharps & D Flats in the song. I thought it had sounded weird but my untrained ear could not pin point the problem.

I grab a highlighter and quickly try and scan the sheet music to highlight all of the offending notes so I won't miss them. (Is this cheating?) I only get half a page into the song before we are whisked onto the stage and expected to perform. Our group leader announces our group, and quickly recalls our rehearsal schedule, which I don't remember at all. The instructor gives us the greenlight. I look down at the keyboard and all of the sudden I'm 10 years old again and I haven't been keeping up with my practice. I can only play the melody with my right hand, pecking away with my index finger, all sharps are forgotten, all flats non-existent. I struggle through half the song as the audience cringes in discomfort. My group turns on me and start to plot my destruction. The instructor just buries his face into his hands.

I realize I will never pass the class. I will never graduate from college. I will never fulfill my dreams. I will never get that fabulous career and make enough money to support a family. I will end up on the streets, homeless and hungry; begging for change so I can buy a burger and smoking discarded butts out of the gutter. All because I forgot about the A Sharps & The D Flats! Nooooooooooooo!

Then I wake up.

(In reality, I passed that class with flying colors! I aced the piano test, and played the Ukelele like a pro!)

Wrestling Pencils

When I was a little kid and I was bored I used to take two pencils and wrap a rubberband around them and then twist and twist and twist and twist until the rubberband was about to snap. Then I would place the pencils on my desk and let them go! They'd spin and jump and rattle and hop until the rubberband went slack and one pencil 'pinned' the other to the desk! This was Pencil Wrestling at its most exciting! I was a devoted fan!

Today at work, nothing to do, I rediscovered the wonders of Pencil Wrestling! I orchestrated my own Wrestling Pay-Per View their in the stock room! I named all of my Graphite Grapplers after real life wrestling legends! Now I know what you're saying, "All pencils look alike. How could this possibly be exciting to a thirty year old boy?" Well, it just was!

Zip! Nada! Zero!

Nothing. That's exactly what's going on at work right now. There's nothing to do. They gave me Monday off; nothing to do. I left work early yesterday and today I can look forward to hours of filing merchandising catalogs and price sheets... all day long! I'm supposed to be at my current job for another week. Wheeeee!

On the new job search the word of the week is 'Nothing'. All of the leads I thought I had have dried up. "We're sorry our hiring manager came down with appendicitis." He really did, it's the truth. Unfortunately, it postpones the possibility of me getting that job. The owner of the other bar that said he could possibly use me has completely flaked and I'm not sure when I'll get another bite. (This is all just overdramatic angst. I could get a call over the weekend.)

But you know what's funny? Chubby Kittens! They're a riot! I'm not just talking about porky cats, no. I mean the kittens who are so fat they waddle. You're almost afraid that they're tiny little legs are going to snap off under their enormous load. Cats that are so fat that they're ball-like. They can't roll over onto their feet if you put them on their back, they just sit kicking their little legs, struggling against their impossible task and meowing to beat the band! They're like little furry soccer balls! It makes me giggle.

Lost 11 Year Old Found

The 11-year-old boy, a boy scout, who spent four days lost in the Utah wilderness is reunited with his family. The boy's mother has been quoted as saying, "The heavens are not closed."

I prefer White Water Summer. An inspiring movie about an boy, Sean Astin, who's parents send their awkward son on an outward bound summer vacation. Kevin Bacon, the guide, is a hard ass who loves to commune with nature and takes offense at his groups inability to embrace the wilderness. Bacon flips out, smashes Sean's radio, frees the fish caught 'unfairly', and leaves the kids alone over night during a storm prompting a mutiny! The teens rebel and 'accidentally' throw Kevin off of a cliff... (Gasp) Then it's up to the pubescent city slickers to somehow come together, beat the odds and get out of the wilderness alive with an injured Kevin Bacon. It's wrought with tension and in the end Sean Astin shoots the rapids with Bacon in tow to save the day and go on to get cast in Encino Man several years later. Go Samwise Gamgee! Now that's exciting.

But hey, good for the boy that was recently saved from wandering aimlessly in the woods for days, and thanks to all the Mormons who were out searching. A happy ending. It's nice. (Did anyone shoot the rapids? Anyone at all?)

Yummy

Last night for dinner we prepared tempura vegetables; sweet potatoes, squah, asparagus, etc. It was fun and delicious. Then as I was finishing with the sliced vegetables, I got an idea for a desert.
Take a Twix candy bar dip it into the tempura batter, lower it into a vat of boiling oil (350 degrees) and cook until golden brown. Remove from oil and let dry on a paper towel. Enjoy!

tempura - noun: seafood or vegetables dipped in batter and fried in deep fat

Twix - noun: The only candy bar with golden caramel, smooth chocolate and a trademark cookie crunch

Tempura Twix - noun: pure heaven

Oooh, I hate it when that happens...

Warning!!!
The following is kinda gross, and just a little bit funny. It should not be read by those who don't appreciate the quirkiness and innate humor found in bodily functions.

So, maybe I'm sick but I love hearing about other people's awkward moments. For instance a good friend of mine, who shall remain nameless, wrote me:

"So here is a story you should find amusing. I found it to be somewhere between embarrassing and horrific. But I had to share it with someone. If it hadn't happened to me I'd think it was fucking hilarious. No, it's still fucking hilarious.

I shit myself today at work. You still with me? Good. It gets better.

It wasn't a full blown load. I guess the technical term would be shart, shit/fart. It didn't feel too bad at first. I was at the urinal but I didn't check it out then, cause I'm a dumb ass. No I walked back to my office. But it became pretty obvious that something was very wrong. So I headed back to the bathroom to investigate. Oh my God. I'll spare you the details, I know too late right?

How bad was it? I had to throw my underwear away. Yep, they are sitting in a trash can in the basement of the _____________ __________ Building. I had to sit in the stall until the coast was clear and I could get to the trash can. Not my finest moment.

Hopefully you got a good laugh out of that.

Later,
____ "

What do you say to that? What can you say? Thank you very much for sharing, Mr. Anonymous Poopy Pants. I appreciate it. The next time I loose control of my bowels, you'll be the first to know.

Nowadays

Michael Jackson is 'Not Guilty'.
Good for him!

Jennifer Wilbanks, the runaway bride, has sold her movie rights and looks to make a profit from her lies, deceit and slandering of Latino men everywhere.
Good for her?

That crazy Frenchman, the Spiderman, has scaled yet another insanely tall building, this time in Hong Kong.
Yippee!

Katie Holmes is hanging around with an employee of the Church of Scientology.
I guess somebody has to!

After being told that my pay raise that I was promised over two months ago would go into effect in the middle of July, and so I'd have to wait another 8 weeks until actually see any of the money I replied, "Well, I won't be here." Yes for the second time in 9 months I am actively seeking new employment, broke as a joke, and starting to wonder why I even went to college. Sure, I'm a well rounded person and all, but a degree doesn't really come in handy when your waiting tables or schlepping drinks, does it? Oh, I'm also qualified to be a barista. Happy Days! Let's see how long this job search runs.

Searching

You get all dressed up. You smooth down your cowlick. You print out some resumes. You hit the streets, bursting with energy, and optimism. You canvas the area.

"Hello, I was wondering..."

"Are you accepting applications..."

"Yes, hi, I was curious..."

"I saw in the paper..."

"I don't suppose..."

"Thanks anyway."

Suddenly, you're drained. All of your energy, positivity and good feelings are gone. Disappeared. You start to feel overwhelmed. The heat. The walking. The rejections. The prospect of having to start at the bottom at a new place. Everything just starts to weigh you down. Your steps become smaller. The sweat stain on your shirt gets larger. Your patience shrinks. Your feeling of worthlessness hangs over you like a cloud, shadowing your every move. You even start to think back to college and how you could've, possibly, gotten more out of your time there. Sure, you've got a degree but you've accomplished exactly jack squat since and you're still stumbling through your days wondering when you'll figure it all out.

Do you remember those career counseling sessions you had in school when you were younger? You answered questions, and they told you what jobs you would be good for. You know it's funny, I can remember the name of the custodian at my elementary school, Mr. Butler, but I'll be damned if I recall what career I was well-suited for. Mmmm, maybe I should be a custodian...

Mi Amigo

So I stopped in this bar around the corner from our apartment. Not to drink, not to watch the Cubs game; just to say hi to a friend of mine who works there. We used to work together in the same restaurant. He's a cook. Anyway, I haven't seen him in a couple months and his wife just recently had a baby girl. I stopped into congratulate him. We talked for awhile, inquired about old friends, mutual acquaintances, significant others, etc.

Eventually the conversation ended and I started to go.

"Hey, why don't you get a job here?" my friend asked.

"Eh, I'm still up in the air about what I want to do. I'm not sure if I want to go back to bartending," was my asinine reply.

"Just part-time. We could always use help. I'll talk to the boss," my friend offered.

"Maybe. Let me think about it. I'll stop in later."

What's there to think about? My friend has worked there since the bar opened; they lured him away from his other job. The owners trust him. He trusts me. He thinks I could get work. Am I so attached to the my current job, and the frustration I've been dealing with lately to accept an offer for help from a friend? I'm contemplating finding a new job anyway... what's the problem?

Maybe I'll go back in and fill out an application.

Can't Take Much More

I feel
beat up
beat down
laughed at
spit on
negated neglected rejected
DISRESPECTED

and
abused

Hee Hee Hee

It's funny how the littlest things can make your day. Maybe getting to the bus stop two seconds before the bus. Walking by the dog beach and watching two dogs tussling in the sand. Hearing a song that you haven't heard in years blaring out of someone's car stereo as they drive down your street. Or reading an article on that starts out:

'PHNOM PENH, Cambodia (June 8) - Robbers who strike while wearing only underwear, their bodies slathered with oil to make them slippery and harder to catch, have resurfaced in Cambodia.
Two unidentified, underwear-clad burglars robbed homes in the southern province of Takeo on May 30, The Cambodia Daily quoted area police chief Sok Tum as saying.
Police thought they had quashed the "underwear gang" last year, the report said.'
-Aol News

???????????? The 'Underwear Gang'? Are you kidding me? How great is that? They strip down to their tightie whities, smear canola oil, or some equally ingenious lubrication all over their bodies and break into peoples houses. They're criminal masterminds, and there's more than one; they're a gang. I wonder if they sit around the secret hideout, in their underwear, smoking cigarettes, staring at maps, plotting their next big hit and eating Little Debbie Snack Cakes. I know I would.

Kudos to the 'Underwear Gang'! You've made my day!

Who Cares?

Earlier I wasted several minutes reading an article on who had better grades at Yale: George W. or Kerry.
Hmmm? Fascinating. They both had a D or two. They both were average students. Hmmm?
Who Gives A Shit?
This is newsworthy? I'd rather read about Britney and the idiot she married! I was an average student. I had a few Ds. I wouldn't bore you with a news article on it! That was valuable time I squandered on such a dumb piece of information. I could've been checking my email for the six hundredth time!

Techno-RAGE

Son of a...! Argh! Uggh! Raaarrr! Fiddlesticks!
So I can't access my email for some reason. I logged on this morning and received this message

Service Unavailable

The service you are trying to access is currently unavailable. Please try again in a few moments.

So a few moments later I tried again. Same message. I logged on a few minutes after that and nothing had changed. A little while later I checked again. Same warning.

Now, here I am three hours later and I'm bouncing off the walls. I can log in and check out the home page, read the news, check local listings for movie times, I could even find a recipe for iguana & kumquat chili, if I so desired, but I cannot check my F'n email! To make matters worse I can see the indicator that tells me I have messages in my inbox. It's just sitting there, mocking me! Taunting! I can't stop checking!

It's like when you go into a job interview and the secretary says, "Mr Rockwell has a glass eye. Please try not to stare." What do you do for the next twenty to twenty five minutes of your job interview? YOU STARE! You stare right at Mr. Rockwell's glass eye! You stare at it so hard that you can see yourself in it! You even start adjusting your tie, and combing your hair in the reflection from that glass eye that you were supposed to pretend to not even notice!

It's human nature! It's not your fault. That's how we were wired. That's just who we are. Look, I'll try again right now.

------------------------------Please Hold----------------------------------

Damnnit! What's the good of all this technology if I can't even access my damn email? What's the point? We can clone sheep. We can walk on the moon. We can build cars that use electricity. We can even CGI the crap out of the latest Star Wars movie and send me into sensory overload from all the unnecessary special effects but I can't check my email to get that ever so important Evite to an event I don't want to go to, that offer for free viagra from some anonymous sender, or even that annoying forward, from my so-called friend, about 'how much do I know my friend; really?'.

Well, I guess I should get back to work anyhow!

My Morning Thus Far

So I decided that I needed to stop by Dunkin' Donuts. We went out last night for the first time with my brother and sister-in-law, and while I had a pretty tame night I was still exhausted this morning. So I wanted some caffeine.

It was packed, as it always is in the morning, and I resigned myself to the fact that I would be waiting for awhile. Several seconds pass as I contemplate my order. The door behind me opens, I hear a sharp inhalation of breath, a softly muttered curse, and the door shuts again. I absentmindedly turn around and see a young lady exiting the store. I guess she couldn't wait. Oh well, I tune out again. The young lady turns and looks at me over her shoulder. I'm in a daze thinking to myself, 'Donut? Bagel? Regular Coffee? Hazelnut?'. She glances at me again, and I realize she must know me so I focus and see {Drum Roll, Please!...............................} the girl who's responsible for me losing my last job. The job I had for close to five years. If you don't know that story, don't worry, it's not worth repeating.

Anyway, I'm 93% sure it was her. She looks very similar to millions of other young ladies in the city, but the way she scurried off, looking over her shoulder, into her car after walking in behind me leads me to believe it was her. She must've really wanted donuts cause she went to the drive through. I wait...

Then I start thinking about how losing the last job, while upsetting at the time and the financial struggles I've endured since then have been the opposite of fun, was probably a blessing in disguise. I had become complacent. I hated the job but was comfortable, and could BS my way through week after week, month after month of slinging stir-fry into the troughs of the unwashed masses. Losing the job made me get off my keister and try knew things, contemplate my direction, and reevaluate my goals. So then I thought about my current job aggravation, I mean situation, and it comes to me; I don't need this job either. There's other jobs I could be doing. I definitely am hoping to one day achieve a level of success where I can work for myself, so any job until then is probably just going through the motions to pay bills. Takes a lot of the stress out of this waiting game I'm playing. If the raise I was promised doesn't arrive by a certain date I'll turn in my notice, hit the pavement and find another bill-paying temporary job to kill the time.

Wow, all this came to me because of the almost, not quite an encounter with some girl who I've resented for some time. The little voice in my head said, "Maybe she did you a favor. Maybe you're better off. Maybe we want a medium coffee/w cream & sugar, and a strawberry frosted donut!"

Moving Day!

In the seven years I've been in Chicago I've moved six times, not to mention the countless times I've helped friends move. It's never a 'fun' time, and more often then not it just plain sucks!

Yesterday I helped my little brother and his wife move into an apartment here in the city. Now, I was a little nervous things wouldn't go to smoothly, alright that was a blatant lie, I was terrified. He's the opposite of punctual, so I was expecting a late start. She's 'don't know my right from my left' challenged and was driving the Budget truck, so I was counting on several wrong turns and a handful of pedestrians to meet their doom beneath her tires. As it so happened they showed up on time, and actually maneuvered the monster truck with more control than I would have thought possible. (She still doesn't know her left from her right but, hey, it's kinda humorous... I guess.)

They opened up the back of the truck and I almost crapped my pants right there on the sidewalk! Who has that much stuff? They've only been married for a year! How do you acquire so much junk in 365 days that your older brother, a grown man of reasonably controllable bowels, nearly drops a deuce in his shorts at the mere sight of it all? It was going to be a long day.

Luckily they brought a dolly. I work with a dolly every day. I'm lifting boxes, shifting items, and transferring merchandise between stores. So, yesterday, I'm making the most out of every trip into the apartment; stacking boxes, lifting dressers, even taking the time to give my brother a little 'stock room extreme' dolly ride. We attacked the move with gusto and actually knocked it out in just under four hours or so, with relative ease. Unpacking still has to happen but I've served my purpose.

The only thing left to do is return the rental truck. Budget Rental! Harumph! Long story short we drive to the drop off point and they're closed with signs posted everywhere saying not to leave your truck there if you did not rent it there, even though their rental agreement said they could drop it off there. So we call customer service and they tell us to take it to another location which we find out from another renter has no room on their lot and is closing soon. Customer service sends us to a 24 hour Budget lot further west. They're full! We can't leave it there either. Meanwhile I have tech rehearsal for my show starting in less than an hour, I've been bouncing around Chicago in a truck with a directionally challenged driver, and we're all a little worn out from the day's move. Screw It! We dropped it off at the original destination and plan to write a strongly worded letter and complain for the inconvenience.

All in all, a pretty productive day. Besides the Budget debacle things went pretty smoothly, my brother and his wife can start unpacking and exploring the city, and I instantly have two more people to help me move next time. It could've been a lot worse.