Just got back from late late dinner with Ron at Melrose. We did pretty good at not eating any meals out since our Anniversary dinner at Banderas (the best corn bread on the planet). He made stir fry for me last night, too. Plus, we tried out the bread machine that the girls gave me for my birthday two years ago. Evidently the mix they had given me at the time had by now expired and so all the yeast had died. So while we watched hypnotized by the whole process – the bread didn’t rise – it didn’t move. The multi-grain brick produced 2 1/2 hours later was not worthy of consumption. But I kept the manual full of recipes, so we’re on our way. Went to Spin, which I hadn’t been to in a while – left before the shower contest. Then to Roscoes which was alright – then we went to dinner/breakfast (I always have the mesclun salad with chicken breast and Ron always has the Denver omelette with sausage links). And now I’m back home.
I got my hair bleached today to celebrate going part-time. I hadn’t done it in at least a year and a half. But now I have a nice head of white-blond hair. I love it. Ron was worried he’d hate it – but he loves it. It reminds me of when our cousin Pat came to visit from being in the Air Force, stationed in Myrtle Beach, that he was all tan and buff and had white blond hair – though, he was a natural blond so his eyebrows were also blond. I didn’t have the eyebrows messed – I can’t imagine anything more repugnant then watching blond eyebrows grow out dark. Ick. The bleaching went well and didn’t take too long – the first time I had it done they had to fry my head in the hairdryers for nearly an hour and a half. But this only took 45 minutes – then a blue toner to take out any orange-ish-ness and now I look like a rock star.
The theatre company’s shows have had major exposure in all the newspapers, we’ve bought ads and even been featured on CLTV – the local news channel. And the audiences aren’t coming. They even blew the wad on a really accessible and well-known theatre space. And the audiences aren’t coming. It’s very discouraging. I wonder if I should have spent the past five years trying to get into an already established company instead of helping create a new one. That I should be trying to infiltrate Steppenwolf or The Goodman. I don’t know – it’s very disheartening.
No one showed up for my creativity workshops – I even made them free pilot programs and no one called in. I keep telling myself that I have to start somewhere right? And it does get me in the habit of having notes typed up next time I do it. So I guess that’s good. I really have to get my shit organized this coming week and start hustling some coaching clients. Making sure I follow up with all of my leads at least three times.
The new apartment is going well. Still trying to downsize everything a little more each day. If I could just get a duplex sheetfed scanner for a couple of days I could just scan all of my books into the computer and have a character recognition program convert it all to text, right? That’s my fantasy. To have everything digitized – put away – nice and neat. I find lots of creative journals and writing and pictures and ‘raw science’ work that I can’t just toss away. I also want to de-bind my 4,000+ pages of handwriting journals and get all of those scanned in as well. Take everything I own – just not my hard-drive or my journals. And then I can encrypt it all and upload it to my own server so it’s archived and backed-up nightly.
Work is a load of horse-shit. Mark gave his month notice – I think I recorded that here. I am going in on Monday (supposed to be one of my new days off) because we have a load of user testing to complete – of course – as soon as possible. We had all left Wednesday thinking everything was in the bag – we come in Thursday and everything changed the night before – and remained changing for the first hour of the day. Finally I nailed down all that was really going on and emailed it to everybody. Marilyn thanked me for keeping a cool head and being able to put everything into perspective – that made me feel good. So we get back in Thursday and suddenly I have to write user testing scenarios for at least 50 online courses for at least a dozen testers. Luckily I had done this before with similar courseware so I was able to just do some quick edits and cough it all back up to them. And they asked me to work at home this afternoon – which I did – I dialed in four times and checked voicemail – of course, everything is at a standstill on someone else’s clock. These guys make such wrong-headed decisions. Instead of basing their timelines off of when we can get the technical/IT issues nailed down they try to force all the computer issues to their own HR deadline. Which is bullshit – the work in-take here for our internal IT group is like slowly pushing an icepick through your scrotum – painful, slow and messy. The aloof-ness they exhibit is such bullshit. Plus, they re-org-ed the HR department so now we have five new team members – so C_____ and the sub-bosses have been in two days of meetings which, as I guessed, consisted of her and Tom talking high concept and spinning visions while everybody else is thinking, “Sure would like to get back to the five thousand things left to do on my desk right now.”
Had a big panic attack in Banana Republic. It was a meta-panic attack, too. I wasn’t having one because I was nervous about the sales transaction – I was nervous that I had been nervous before in similar situations and had had a panic attack. So I start heating up and start walking and breathing try to keep things under control. Plus, it’s Ron’s present so it isn’t just a quick purchase. No. You have to charge – wait for authorization – then the gift receipt – then they have to fold everything – then they have to put it in a special box – then they have to wrap it. I was losing it… went to the Men’s Room to wipe the sweat off my face and under my shirt with some paper towels. How fucking embarrassing.
I might go to a discussion panel on ‘American Empire’ on 9-11 – seems like a fitting encounter to balance what is sure to be the commodification of human misery that has already started. An issue of the old Brill’s Content had an article about the Jon-Benet Ramsey murders and how journalists and talking heads have used a three-year old stale case where really nothing new has happened since the initial investigation… used the case to advance and platform their own careers. I find this topic fascinating – using human suffering to advance your own career.
On Wednesday night at the gym I had a first – I was able to move and do 4 reps on the incline bench machine with three 45# weights on each side – yup – 270 pounds! I used to not to even be able to move the weight (much less take it through one whole repetition). I am getting bigger – bit by bit…
Life on dial-up is slow. Though free on Netzero.
What else… what else… I don’t know… time for bed.
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