Traffic On Your Parade

In LA, we have no weather. It’s sunny and warm almost all of the time. For the most part, the weather is predictable and reliable. It’s so agreeable, I’ve mostly forgotten that weather is a thing that happens.

And thus, having been denied that outlet to deliver its reminders, here, it is instead through the traffic that the Universe makes its indifferent and chaotic nature known.

The weather is almost always nice, so the Universe orchestrates the traffic to shout: “I’m still capricious and cruel, folks – and don’t you forget about it!”

What a lousy drive. How much longer can I tolerate a life that it this bare-faced random, this coldly arbitrary? A person deserves the illusion of meaning and sense! If the traffic can’t even bother to put on a show of making sense, well, then … I’ll do something, I tell you.

I will do one hell of a something.

Same Shit in a Different Shirt

So, I’ve been at my new job for about a month.

I almost have a clue what I’m doing now.

Here’s what it boils down to.

—> Car-pooling 12 miles, each way — which, of course, takes about an hour or so, each way, up and down the 405. Not too bad, since I’m on salary now, and don’t have to worry about being a bit late, which is like having a super power. Every day we pass a woman dressed as an old-style waitress, wearing a pale-blue gingham dress, a white apron, sometimes partially hidden under a black coat. She’s maybe twenty-five with curly gold hair, and she walks west across the parking-lot that is Sepulveda, coming from an unknown starting point beyond the Galleria Mall and going to her bus stop on Venture Blvd, where the unhappy Mexican mother stand frowning at traffic. We wonder where she works, and why her glum, hurried march somehow brightens our day. She’s the “Ruby Tuesday” girl.

—> Sending and reading so many e-mails that my eyes are blurry and strained — which, I was told, by the optometrist and his very cute, oddly-disappointed-when-I-had-to-leave-for-a-dinner-date, female-brunette-assistant-in-black, was not an excuse to get those glasses I’ve always wanted. I still have 80%+ of the tissue around my optic nerve! That’s apparently good!

—> Having lunch way too often at Subway — which, of course, is a place I used to hate, and that’s because I don’t enjoy instructing restaurant employees as to which ingredients go into making my order. It feels like a test, and I always fail it. (That is, when I ask for an Italian sub, I would like you to make me an Italian sub, and please, don’t ask me what goes into it. I don’t know. You’re the one who works at a sub shop. You tell me what meat goes into it. You tell me what cheese goes into it. Make it taste like an Italian sub, goddammit. I like them).

—> Snatching a half-hour, here and there, to appreciate the solitude of my own 3.5-walled cubicle office, and write something. Trying to make Storybook Park into a novel, but moving slowly, meticulously. Have some ideas to get goddamn Amelia Waverly off the ground as a reborn feature screenplay. Working with Shaun on a short-film about overpopulation in a 1984-style world, probably going to call it Shift Work, but really not sure yet.

—> Spending some very quiet nights alone, with my dog pillow, both of us trying, but failing, to stay awake, me obsessing over secret thoughts, him trying to squirm out of being a pillow. My roommate is working from 7:30pm until 3am or 4am, while I’m working from 9am and getting home at 7pm, which means I never really see her except on weekends, which, in reality, she mostly spends with her boyfriend, whose bed was covered with dried blood for several days. Who collects finger and toenail clippings. Ugh. Don’t tell anyone I know that stuff. Not even me.

—> Still asking myself, what’s next? When do I get to quit this job? When do I get transferred to that bigger pond? When do I stop working through issues, waiting through delays, and start living? When does the breakthrough happen?

—> Still answering myself, when you get your ass to write somewhere other than livejournal. When you turn what’s on your mind into what’s on the page. When the fears, insecurities, and discomforts are just dares that I’ve accepted.

Better than Being Fired, Almost as Good as Quitting

Quite out of the blue today, my manager told me I’m under consideration for a promotion, hopefully a raise. And I hope, a substantial one, since I’m still at starter pay for a QC.

Of course, the catch is I’ll have to learn to open work orders, and thereby, I’ll know how to open jobs, assign jobs to transcriptionists in-house and out, (both of which I recruit, test, and interview), and then process, print, and delivery finished jobs. Meaning, I’ll have a hand in every step of the process, excluding sales and billing, the bookends. However, if that could mean a dollar or two more an hour (hoping for too much, I know), it’d be worth extending my stay there.

I’m getting so close to paying off my credit-card debts, I feel it in my bones.

Barring a tragedy, November or December, my car will be paid off, this laptop and my desktop will be paid off, and my other credit debts will be memories. Sitting on the balcony on break, eyes shut to the sun, I sometimes obsess with thoughts of it, like a vacation or a sexual fantasy. If my car can make it through the year, I’m thinking of leasing or buying something lightly used. I’ve never had anything nearly new. Maybe a Mini Cooper convertible with stick shift. Something stick shift. Something fuel efficient and nimble. Something I can park in my own armpit.

I cannot imagine the money I could save, and the things I could do, if I weren’t paying the same to my debts as I am to my rent, bills, and groceries! I am nauseated with the fear of failing to get there.

And Feel That Way Forever

I have to bite my tongue so that I don’t accidentally quit work today. If this almost-week off doesn’t reset the system, I’m not long for this position.

Meanwhile, I was reading about alcoholics last night, and determined that I’m not an alcoholic. I am, however, a sleep-a-holic. How could anyone sleep only the amount that they need? Who wouldn’t want that feeling to just go on, and on, and on?

Give Morning a Try

After four years of intensive study, I have concluded that all day jobs are bad for me. Once again, this one is killing me. Quickly.

 But I cannot escape it, because there aren’t going to be any better day jobs than this. There’s no place else to explore. Aside from the pay, which could be improved, this is as good as I’m gonna find. Thus, I either slowly tighten until I snap, or I find a way around this immovable object.

Each day, I go to work, and by the end of my stay there, my spirit is 100% broken; I just want to go home, drink a few beers, and curl up for sleep. Even when I’m not physically drained, I’m soul tired, uninspired, angry, hopeless, and lonely.

So, my plan is this: I’m going to get up early, and try to work for three or four hours every morning, before going to work and having my soul crushed. This is a terrible idea, but terrible ideas are the only ones that seem to materialize in this world, aren’t they?

We all know, this will never work. I am as far from a morning person as possible. I’m more Republican than I am morning person. Yet, it’s in the morning shower that I feel closest to maybe, maybe, maybe being able to write something again, maybe, maybe, maybe and enjoy my existance again. It’s not until work beats the hope out of me that I rage at my solitude and my powerlessness. So. We’ll try this. My alarm clock is set for 6:05 AM. I’m gonna give it a shot.

Hell, I can’t get any grumpier.

The Interviewer

I wrote the following in my head last night, when I couldn’t sleep.  It’s about my job.

Sometimes the Interviewer interviews six people a day.  Some are mothers looking for work, for a little extra cash, while their children are at school. Some are actors who want evening hours, so their days will be free, for the auditions that they’re sure will soon be calling.  Some are new arrivals, seeking a foothold in the city.  

The Interviewer is new to the city. Interviewing is his foothold.  

Many of those new arrivals that he interviews soon find themselves in exciting footholds somewhere else, and they turn down the boring foothold that the Interviewer offers.  

The Interviewer wonders why he never got any of those exciting footholds that he was interviewed for.

The Interviewer hires transcriptionists to type what they hear.  What they hear is Entertainment.  Some raw footage from reality television.  Some broadcast news.  Some DVD bonus material.  But mostly, celebrity interviews, promoting this movie or that TV show, discussing this production or that memory, recounting how their career first found a foothold. 

In those transcribed interviews, the celebrity always has a name.  


But the interviewer is always just called “INTERVIEWER.”

Good Guesses

So, I guess I got a job. And I guess I start Monday. And I guess it’s not too far of a drive, and they won’t make me pay for parking, and it’s full time, and it’s enough to pay all my bills, with a tad to spare. So I guess I should be pleased.

But I wish I could get over this week’s intense case of writer’s block. I’m going to take a break from Storybook Park, I believe. At least until I get more feedback, more inspiration. It feels too much like beating my head against a wall, and I don’t want to kill it. Caroline should soon be back from Peru and points beyond, meaning I can return to work on Insignificant Others.

Meanwhile, I’ve been working on the Misplaced Planet Website. Once I have that in a presentable shape again, I’ll move on to cleaning up my own website… Don’t know why. Guess it counts as a hobby.

What Happened?

When the only thing standing between you and poverty is the script for Highlander 5, you can’t help staying up all night re-evaluating your life and watching pirated episodes of the Dave Chapelle Show.

(Dear MPAA, I was kidding about the pirating. I only pirate software.)

>Running out of Ramen

>Okay. I’d like a job now. Anybody?

Ain’t Gotta Chance, Cause All They Do Is Dance

What a week it has been. I had my first and last day of work on Monday. On Tuesday, a management company requested one of my screenplays, one that needed revision. Wednesday I had another interview, this one with a company I really liked (and probably will never hear from again) called Sobini Films. Thursday I finished three non-stop days of revision on Storybook Park, though it was technically 8 AM Friday morning. And Friday I mailed it.

Also, somewhere in there, news came down that the director is still interested in Insignificant Others after reading my writing sample, Ladies & Gentlemen. Which puts that on the pressure cooker for the next big race to the finish.

Next week, I’m back to sending out resumes, and trying to get the car insured.