notes from a man who spends too much time playing video games
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This is where you stick random tidbits of information about yourself.
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A Few Points Shy of the High Score
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Saturday, December 11, 2004
Been waking up every night around 4:30 a.m. That's when the heat kicks on in my apartment in Queens. (I've only been here for about four weeks, so I'm still not accustomed to the sounds of the building.) The pipes make this series of spooky pings, which sounds like a ballpeen hammer being softly tapped against a submarine's hull.
So I'm lying there in the dark this morning, covers screwed up around me, sweating out last night's beer and listening to the pipes, when I remember a summer job I had when I was 14 years old installing insulation in a cavernous seafood restaurant called Pier 31. My father, weary of finding my brother and me lying around the house watching Gilligan's Island when he came home from work every afternoon, decided that we needed to go to work, to earn money. So he found us the job--under the table, of course--installing the insulation.
The insulation was the pink kind that looked like cotton candy. The kind that was advertised on TV with the Pink Panther.
Dad dropped us off there in the mornings. No one supervised us, so most of the day Sean and I played grab-ass, chasing each other around the old restaurant. We poked through the trash piles out back, looking for moldly bottles of pickles, then smashing them with rocks. We made lists of the arcade games that we were going to advise the new owners to install in his restaurant. Zaxon. Galaga. Missile Command. We were sure that these arcade games would make the restaurant successful once it reopened.
At the end of the day, afraid that Dad would return to pick us up and see how little we'd actually accompished, we'd hustle for an hour or two, quickly stuffing the Pink Panther insulation into the rafters, teetering on ladders and working the staple gun, while hornets buzzed us.
We had masks to wear to protect our lungs--they looked like coffee filters with red rubber bands attached--but what I was thinking about at 4:30 this morning, what I was wondering, was whether or not we ever bothered to wear the masks.
I'm pretty sure we didn't.
We huffed that stuff in the summer heat for a month straight.
"Goddammit," I thought, "why didn't we wear the goddamn masks? How could we have been so goddamn stupid?"
Lying there in the dark this morning, remembering this, I felt afraid--afraid that because of an indiscretion one summer, I'd shortened my life by X amount of years. I could practically feel the particles of bright pink fiberglass still burning in my lungs...
During the daylight, as I sit here and drink my coffee, this all seems pretty silly now, but at 4:30 in the morning, I'm about as vulnerable as I ever am. It's always during these vulnerable moments that my mind turns on me, that it drags something like this memory to the surface, and tries its damndest to scare the living hell out of me.
10:59 AM
Sunday, October 10, 2004
Went over to Chi's last night to watch the rebroadcast of Trinidad v. Mayorga. For some reason HBO wasn't (re)airing the fight until 11 p.m. (which is pretty late for me, even on a Saturday). Once the fight was over, I found myself out in the nether regions of Queens in the wee, small hours of the morning.
Chi, bless his heart, offered me his couch for the night, but I decided to take my chances with the F train.
Descending the stairs into the empty station at Union Turnpike, I was met with a sudden gust of wind. Candy wrappers were tumbleweeding around me.
A train was coming. Possibly my train.
I whipped out my Metrocard and barrelled through the turnstiles. Having only been in that particular station a few times before, I took a couple of extra seconds to get my bearings, to figure out which side the Brooklyn-bound trains were on.
That moment of hesitation cost me. Dearly.
An F train--my F train--was sitting in the station, doors standing wide open, as if waiting for me. My first thought was, *There it is!* My second thought was, *If you miss this train at this hour, you're going to be here for awhile.*
I hustled my way down the steps, taking two at a time (not easy for me to do, considering my bad knees), practically throwing myself towards the waiting train. The audible doors-closing signal rang out--bing-bong. The doors clamped shut. The train began to move.
I stood there staring at the tailend of the receding train, trying to somehow will myself on board. Once it was gone, I spent the next 10 minutes staring into the blackness of the tunnel, trying to understand how I could have missed it, backtracking over my journey to the train, cursing myself out for not walking more quickly.
I seem to be going through a phase these days where I'm just missing all my trains by seconds. Seems like it's just happening far more often than it should.
I bought a copy of the previous day's Post from the newsstand. There were some toughs in the station talking loud, making me nervous. I buried myself in the paper, praying for another train. About 15 minutes later, an F train pulled into the station, and I rode home this morning, across three boroughs, reading yesterday's news.
1:01 PM
Sunday, September 19, 2004
Went to the Yankee-Red Sox game yesterday afternoon at the Stadium. Here's an interesting statistic:
Ticket (bleachers): $18.
One Miller Lite Beer: $8.
That's right--$8 *per beer*. For Miller Lite. Christ, I can buy an entire six-pack of Sam Adams for that much. By the third inning, I realized I was on pace to spend $100-plus for the day on beer alone.
With the remains of the hurricane threatening, the stadium lights blazing against the black clouds, and the lopsided score (the game was never close), it was a surreal afternoon, to say the least. In the later innings, the game itself faded into the background, and we spent more time joking and playing grab-ass in the stands. Trying to decide who was going to make the next beer-run took precedence over who was standing at the plate.
Have to say, the Red Sox fans have balls. They showed up in droves, proudly wearing their jerseys and caps. (I even passed Stephen King outside the stadium.) Red Sox fans even bought out a huge block of tickets way up in the nosebleeds. They're truly fearless this year. (Though the fan sitting in front of me, in shame, put a jacket on to cover his Derek Lowe jersey by the second inning yesterday.) You'd think behavior like that would merit ass-kickings, but aside from a little friendly baiting here and there, the whole thing was relatively civil.
Saw the Hopkins-De La Hoya fight last night. Disappointing, to say the least. Oscar was on his way to getting a beating, so it was probably for the best that he went down, and stayed down, when he did. Hopkins, once he realized De La Hoya couldn't hurt him, was fearless. I'd braced myself for drama--$54.95 worth of drama--and came away feeling hollow and a little duped.
Had one hell of a time getting home last night. One of the great things about NYC, unlike London and Boston, is that the subways run all night. Well, they sort of run anyway. Here's my commute from last night:
0. Entered subway at 28th Street and Park Avenue at 12:30.
1. Took downtown 6 train to Broadway/Lafayette.
2. Realized that F trains weren't stopping there (they were being rerouted over the A line), so I crossed over to the uptown platform and took an uptown F to West 4th.
3. Heard from a subway employee that F trains were indeed running, but that they weren't stopping downstairs on the F tracks, but only upstairs on the A tracks.
4. Caught A train to Jay Street-Borough Hall (breathed sigh of relief, because I was in Brooklyn at this point).
5. F trains were being rerouted from there, so I took an F one stop to Hoyt-Schemerhorn. (The F and the G do this switch sometimes on weekends, for no discernible reason.)
6. At Hoyt-Schemerhorn, I switched to the G train (finally), which was making local stops along the F line in Brooklyn.
7. Unlocked the front door to my apartment at 2:15 am.
Granted, I was half-drunk on Rheingold when I was trying to figure all this out. But I'm an expert at this point, having ridden subways for eight long years now. Pity the poor bastards who are new to all of this. Hell, they're probably still down there, trying to sort things, even now as I type this...
Uptown, downtown, going backwards to go forwards, etc. At some point, you have to laugh at the awful absurdity of it all. Me, peering at these indecipherable posters the MTA tacks up everywhere ("F trains run over the G line from 12:01am Sunday until..."), trying to make sense of them, trying to find my way home. It was as if the gods were having a laugh at my expense, testing my resolve, seeing how much horseshit I could take. The whole journey had the oh-come-on-now/give-me-a-break quality of that old Scorcese movie, After Hours.
And when I finally surfaced in Brooklyn in the early hours of the morning, it was positively cathartic, I tell you.
1:19 PM
Friday, August 20, 2004
Having a hell of a time getting to sleep this week. Blame it on anxiety. I'm anxious about a whole host of things: moving, trying to find a new apartment, trying to find a job, etc. Been treating myself to the occasional 20-oz. Coke in the afternoons, which probably isn't helping matters. (My delicate constitution just doesn't handle caffeine very well...)
Without a doubt Tuesday night was one of the worst nights I've ever had. I wanted to sleep, and couldn't. I'd worked all day, I was incredibly tired...but for some reason, sleep kept illuding me. I felt like I could *see* it off in the distance (in an abstract sense), but I just couldn't get there. Like a mirage in the desert, I couldn't seem to get any closer to it, no matter how hard I tried. It felt like my bed sheets were trying to strangle me. I fought with them, kicking and punching, trying to get them off me. I looked at the eerie glowing hands of my watch. One o'clock, two o'clock, three o'clock... The night was passing. I had a hectic day lined up for Wednesday, and with a growing sense of nausea and despair, I realized that the later I was awake, the more damage I was doing to my Wednesday... Things were getting desperate. If I had any beer in the house, I probably would have drank it. I do have a dusty old bottle of Jack Daniels in my cupboard, but I knew it would probably only make me sick...
Finally, I gave in. I got out of bed, switched on the TV. I sat here in the dark, bleary eyed, watching a water polo match between Croatia and the Canada. Once the match was over, coverage of the olympics ended for the night. The morning news came on. "Good morning, New York!" the anchor woman said. I looked at the windows. The sun was coming up.
Well, fuck me, I thought. It's fucking dawn already.
Millions of people at that very moment were waking up. Showering. Fixing coffee. Going to work.
I took a benadryl and actually did manage to pinch my eyes shut for about four hours. Wednesday was terrible. I walked around in a complete daze all day. I felt drunk, like I'd had five or so beers. Whenever I talked with people, I found myself going off on bizarre, chatty tangents. I felt completely unselfconscious. A few times I felt like I was even hallucinating a little--I'd see movement in my peripheral vision, but when I'd turn my head, there would be nothing there.
So today's public service announcement: This is your brain. Now this is your brain without sleep. Any questions?
12:07 PM
Monday, August 16, 2004
My six months of free AOL--complimentary with my shiny new Dell--is expiring this week. With the clock ticking down, I decided to switch to a cheaper, no-frills ISP. Netzero, at $10 a month, seemed to be the way to go. I have friends who swear by Netzero.
I downloaded it, got it running...and now my computer is completely vexed with spyware.
Goddamn spyware.
It's like my computer is haunted. The CD-ROM drives--no kidding--open and close of their own volition. The other day I was doing a google search when a full-screen window of a topless Asian woman suddenly popped up with the pulsing words ME SUCKEE LONGTIME! CLICKEE NOW!
Whoever invented spyware deserves to have a fucking pox on his house.
And I can't get rid of this shit. I'm running a program called Ad-aware, which seems to clean up some of the junk, but now it seems like every time I go online, I come off with more clutter. I've uninstalled Netzero (and have demanded a refund), and now it looks like I'll have to uninstall AOL too.
I'm at the end of my rope here. Hell, I'd call an exorcist if I thought it would help.
12:15 PM
Tuesday, August 10, 2004
I had a physical last week. I felt fat sitting there on the examining table in my underwear. "I've gained a lot of weight," I said to the doctor, as if this were obvious to anyone.
He told me to step on the scale. Doctor offices in New York are always the size of broom closets. The entire office is like one long series of broom closets linked together.
When I got down off the table, the doctor moved closer to the door, allowing me to reach the scale.
I wrestled in high school (I was a terrible wrestler, prone to hyperventilating on the mat during my matches), so I knew how to work the scale. I played with the little weights, shifting them around. The doctor and I stood there waiting for things to balance. I held my breath for some reason.
"201 pounds," he said.
"I told you I've gained weight."
The doctor paged through my file. "The last time we weighed you was two years ago. Back then, you weighed...200. In two years, you've gained one pound."
Two years of not taking very good care of myself and all I've gained is a pound. The doctor phoned yesterday with the results of my blood work. The doctor is a morose, distant man in person, but he's even more morose and distant over the phone. He specializes in cardiology (his desk is covered with a bunch of dirty looking heart-shaped squeeze toys from some pharmaceutical company). "Your results are all fine," he said. Cholestoral: good. White blood cell count: good. Sugar levels: good. Etc.
Everything: good. I'm 35 years old. I haven't exactly been a health nut the past few years. I drank a lot of beer in those years. I didn't get to bed early, didn't eat right, etc. But somehow, despite all this, I'm still intact.
Maybe my genetic material is exceptional. Or maybe this is Fate's way of saying, "This is your last f*cking chance, a-hole."
7:59 AM
Wednesday, August 04, 2004
Been awhile since I've mentioned videogaming...
Been playing a bit of Spider-man 2 lately. I have no real interest in seeing the new movie--the previous one soured me on the whole franchise--but the videogame is really something else. Making my way around New York City, swinging through the neighborhoods--Chelsea, Grammercy Park, Tudor City, even Roosevelt Island--and solving random (although somewhat repetitive) street crimes is great fun.
Swinging feels extremely awkward at first--be prepared to hit the ground a lot--but stay with it. After a few hours of practice, it really becomes second nature.
The PS2 version, from what I've read, is the worst of the three out there. The Xbox version is by far the best (though the copy I have tends to crash occasionally).
12:06 PM
Tuesday, August 03, 2004
It's August. Hot as balls. I'm still unemployed. Haven't even tried looking for a job, maybe because I'm afraid what the answer might be, afraid of what I'll find. My savings account is running dangerously low. My threadbare existence. Paid my bills last night, assessing my situation. This won't last much longer. It can't. The days of sitting around in my underwear in front of the air conditioner have to end soon... I wrote checks last night and felt the old familiar tightness in my chest, like I'm drowning. My credit card debt is on the verge of being unmanageable. It feels foolish, a little indulgent, this not working.
Sure, I'm writing, working on things, but I have nothing to show for it thus far.
One of my freelance stories from earlier in the year got picked up by a London newspaper called the Sunday Herald, so I earned a little cash from that. That's good. Otherwise, it's been a long, dry summer.
Construction on the bridge outside my building started today. The jackhammers--a pair of them--were going full bore at 8 a.m. this morning. Glory be.
9:48 AM
Wednesday, June 16, 2004
I repotted a plant early this morning while the temperatures were still low. The weather in New York turned warm yesterday, so any physical activity, like the repotting of plants, must be done very early in the morning. After 11 a.m., nothing gets accomplished.
The plant is this prehistoric-looking fern that I bought at the deli for 20 dollars. I bought it because I'm trying to class up my apartment a little. I've decided to sell, to put my apartment on the market, and I figured that a big fern is an inexpensive way to make the place look better.
I went upstate to Joelle's last weekend. She rents the small coach house out behind a doctor's much larger house. It's positioned on the edge of a section of swamp land, which means that not only are the bugs great in number, they can also sometimes grow to extremely large sizes. When I arrived last weekend, there was a dark smudge on the kitchen linoleum, near the stove. I asked her what had happened. She sighed in a tired way. Then she said, "It was a spider. With a big belly. I killed it, but I just couldn't deal with cleaning up the mess."
Whenever I visit, I'm deputized as the bug killer of the house. I don't like bugs any more than Joelle does. In fact, I'm probably a bigger arachnaphobe than she is, yet because of my gender, I'm the one who must kill things. Joelle always jokes that she promises one sexual favor per bug killed.
Early Sunday morning while drinking my coffee, I came upon a small spider on the kitchen wall. I promptly went to the bathroom, got a few squares of toilet paper, killed the spider, then told Joelle of my deed. "Well, what size was it?" she asked.
"It was pretty small."
"How small?"
"About the size of a pea," I said.
"That's probably worth a brief blowjob," she said.
Later, I found a wasps' nest in the eaves outside her door. I pointed it out to her. "It's empty," she said.
I asked her what she meant by "empty."
"No wasps live there."
I checked it out. She was right--empty. I got a rake and used the tines to try and knock it loose. "Boy, this sucker is really on there," I said, trying to bring it down.
"They use their saliva to make those little honeycombs," she said. Joelle knows about nature things.
Finally, I brought the nest down. "One wasps' nest," I said. "What's that worth?"
"It was empty."
"So?"
"So it posed no real threat."
I started chasing her around the yard, swinging the tines of the rake at her in a playful way. Joelle laughed, and after a few minutes of chasing, she shouted, "Alright, alright, for an empty wasps' nest, I'll make out with you for two minutes."
"Final offer?"
"Final offer," she said.
"Alright, I'll take it," I said.
8:51 AM
Wednesday, April 14, 2004
So my last day. (Part one of two.)
It began at 9 AM at Beth Israel Hospital on First Avenue with me having a sonogram done on my balls. No kidding. With my insurance only hours away from expiring, my urologist had scheduled me for a check-up at the last minute. Wearing only my dress socks and a threadbare hospital gown, I climbed up onto the examining table. I opened my gown and waited for the technician. (Honestly, at this point I've been nude so many times in front of doctors and nurses that it's become routine.) "MI DIOS!" the technician screamed at the sight of my bottomless self (nothing but dress socks, baby!).
She handed me a towel and asked me to "discretely" cover everything except my testicles. She lowered the lights, then proceeded to pour an ice cold gel onto my testicles. A few minutes later, she fired up her sonogram machine, and began rubbing the probe up, down, left, and right on my balls.
As the probe slowly orbited my testicles, I thought, This is certainly a fitting way to start my last day as a pornographer….
After the exam, I got dressed, then took the 6 train uptown to the office.
The plan was to leave by 3:30 in the afternoon. Felt like an appropriate time to make my exit.
A bitter March wind was blowing along Park Avenue, pressing against the windows of my office. I spent the remainder of the morning drinking coffee and carefully erasing every last trace of myself from the place. Scoured my computer's harddrive, clicking and dragging everything even remotely personal into the trash. I sank my arms into desk drawers up to the elbows, making sure I didn't leave anything behind.
I filled four boxes—those computer paper boxes—with my belongings. Books, letters, papers, bills—I threw it all into the boxes, figuring I'd have plenty of time to sort it out later once I got everything to Brooklyn.
All week long I'd been bracing myself for a gesture of gratitude of some sort from the company. Maybe some people would gather in my office. Maybe there would be a cake of some kind. A gift certificate maybe. At least a card, wishing me well.
Around noon, I stopped bracing myself. With hope dwindling, I began the process of making my peace with the fact that there would be no final act of gratitude. If anything, most of my co-workers seemed vaguely hostile towards me. And why shouldn't they be? I was leaving. I was getting out. I was going over the wall. Monday morning, they'd be back here, trying to put together the July issue, while I sat at home and drank coffee in my underwear and read The Post….
Dino suddenly appeared in my doorway, envelope in hand. "Scott, we're all going to miss you around here," he said. Dino is Mr. Traverson's older, and somewhat dimmer witted, brother. His most memorable moment at the magazine had been the failed hair transplant he'd endured in 1999. (We all had to pretend that his hair had magically grown back overnight, then had fallen out again a few weeks later.) He runs the company Accounting Department. He handed me the envelope and said, "Here's your final paycheck." Then Dino leaned across my desk, his mouth close to my ear, positioning himself to tell me something secretive and important. "Since the pay period technically ends not today but on Monday the 15th," he whispered, "we had to dock you the extra day. Sorry about that, but that's the way it goes."
He grabbed my hand, shook it firmly, wished me well one last time, then walked out the door.
I peered inside the envelope. You motherhumpers, I thought, looking at the check. After working here for seven years, you can't fucking float me one day? One goddamn day?
This felt like a kick in the ass of sorts. I really should have known better than to expect any generousity whatsoever from a place run by a multi-millionaire who clips coupons. (Mr. Traverson had been spotted in the Dunkin Donuts across the street arguing with the manager over the validity of a 2-for-1 Coolatta coupon.)
If anything, the short shrift on the paycheck only served to steel my resolve. There was no turning back now, no more second guessing. It was over. My time here was up. The compromised check would only make leaving easier.
I boxed up the rest of my things. I made arrangements with Mr. Traverson's secretary to have a car service pick me up downstairs at 3:30.
I said goodbye to Mr. Traverson first. Lately he's started wearing his eyeglasses on a gold chain around his neck, like Al Pacino in Godfather III, and before shaking my hand, he unhooked his glasses from behind his ears and let them dangle from the chain. The goodbye was, not surprisingly, entirely impersonal. Mr. Traverson knew plenty about me—like the time I'd shit myself at the office, and the fact that I'd been seeing an analyst—but at the same time he'd known nothing at all about me. In all the years I'd worked here, he always seemed startled to see me walking the halls. And he always seemed irritated by my presence. Even now, he appeared to be bothered by my wanting to say goodbye, as if whatever was happening on his computer screen—the Instant Message tone chimed a few times while I was standing there—was of a much greater importance. "Good luck to you," he said, pumping my hand.
After I'd finished with Traverson, I went up and down the halls, going office to office. I hugged people, just dove right in and wrapped my arms around them, whether they wanted to be hugged or not. Some of the ladies in Accounting kissed me, and wished me well. "You're a good person," Margarite said. Then she said it again. "YOU ARE A GOOD PERSON."
I grabbed the old German photo editor, but she went lifeless in my arms. Clearly she didn't want any part of my goodbye. I really didn't give a damn what she wanted. This was about what I needed to do, about how I needed to leave this place. I wanted to say goodbye to her in this way, so that's how I said goodbye to her, by hugging her old, limp body.
I shook Piffty's hand, which was surprisingly small and weak and damp. I gave Siohban a hug and a kiss. "Thank God you're leaving," she said. "At least for a few weeks we'll be able to blame everything on you." Siohban—bitter to the end, as expected.
At 3:25 Jeffrey Duane (the mailroom attendant) wheeled his handtruck into my office and said, "It's time." He loaded all four of my boxes onto the handtruck, then made his way towards the lobby.
My office stripped bare, my computer screen blank, I sat down at my desk one final time. My old chair felt so goddamn comfortable to me, so perfectly safe. I felt like a pilot saying goodbye to his plane, or a bus driver saying goodbye to his bus. I traced my fingertips along the edge of the bare desktop, the place where I'd eaten a thousand sandwiches. This is the place where I sat and conducted business for the past seven years. This place. This was the place that saved me from doom (I was on the cusp of leaving New York when I got this job), and now I was leaving it behind, now I was going to take my chances on my own again.
I left my unread copy of Who Moved My Cheese? Why? I don't know. It just seemed kind of a weird thing to leave behind. I placed it squarely in the center of my desk, then switched off the lights, quietly closed the door.
I unhooked my office keys from my keychain, dropped them off with Mr. Traverson's secretary. "Your car should be here any minute," she said. As Jeffrey Duane and I waited in the lobby for the elevator, I said goodbye to Maria, the girl at the front desk. Maria and I had exchanged hellos and goodbyes for the past three years, but we were still basically complete strangers. "This is for you," I said, pulling a card from my coat pocket. "For you, and your baby."
Maria was six months pregnant, and in recent weeks had transformed from a goofy girl from Brooklyn into a sad and beautiful mother-to-be. She taken on the vulnerability and strength that mothers seem to have. A few weeks earlier she'd shown me a sonogram of her baby, excitedly pointing out the shape of the head, the feet, the hands. I felt grateful that she was willing to share this with me, grateful to see her so excited about her future—right there was a picture of it, albeit a crude, blurry one.
There were many of factors involved in me finally putting in my notice at Bonjour Publishing, and Maria, and the way she was bravely bringing a life into the world (there was never any mention of a father), was one of them. Absolutely.
Inside the card was a check for $50—not much, but it was something. It felt like an appropriate final gesture, a fitting last action at the office. I wanted to leave this place on good terms, with people feeling good about me and me feeling good about them. Maria thanked me for the card, held it in her hands, seemed suddenly shy, not wanting to open the card in my presence.
The elevator doors opened. Jeffrey Duane and I, along with my four boxes, got on board. Maria wished me well and waved. The doors closed. And we began our descent to the street....
5:09 PM
Monday, April 05, 2004
I took the F train to the 24-hour Kinkos on Court Street in Brooklyn this morning. I discovered that Kinkos is where the unemployed gather, so I guess it was only a matter of time before I found my way there. The air had a sweaty desperation about it, everyone looking both wild-eyed and damned. A rabbity girl was frantic to get her resume faxed. A red-faced man struggled with a jammed copy machine. The wild-eyed and the damned, I'm telling you.
I'm having business cards printed, because one day I hope to actually do business again.
I spent the afternoon in my apartment trying to get my printer to work. It's one of those cheapie Dell machines that supposedly functions as a printer/copier/scanner/fax machine. So far, I can't get it to do any of those things. I'm about ready to throw the fucking thing out the window.
Still hard to believe that I left. That I quit. I keep waiting for the alarm clock next to my bed to go off, to wake me from this strange little dream I seem to be having….
5:15 PM
Tuesday, March 02, 2004
Whenever an employee is fired or quits at the magazine, he or she is always, for lack of a better term, eulogized in the magazine letters section. It's a long standing tradition here, a tradition that I can proudly say that I myself started.
I remember the first firing here. Happened about a month after I started. It was late in the day, a few minutes to five. Mr. Traverson appeared in the hallway. He quietly walked into Bob Lyle's office and closed the door behind him....
The rest of us gathered outside Bob's office. We knew something was happening. Seconds later we heard a cry of pain. "Noooo!" Bob called out from behind the door. Then he said, "My poor wiiiiiiiife!"
We heard Mr. Traverson say, "Calm down, Bob. Calm down. Pull yourself together, man."
"My poor wife!" Bob shouted again. "My poor wife! Ahhhh!"
I wanted to linger around outside the door--I think we all did--but one of the older editors shooed us away, told us that we should go home, give Bob some peace.
The next day Bob's office was completely cleaned out. Every trace of him was gone. He phoned me that morning at my desk. He sounded like he'd been drinking. I told Bob that I'd always enjoyed working with him, and that I was angry that they'd fired him--two of the biggest, bald-faced lies that I've ever told. Bob wished me luck then hung up the phone.
A few days later I was putting together the letters secton for the magazine when I found myself short on material. The letters, as I've said before, are almost entirely fictional. I began writing a letter to fill the extra space, and before I had a chance to think, I realized that I was writing a letter about Bob.
"I lost my job recently," the letter began. "My wife was really upset that I'd gotten fired, and she wouldn't make me my ham sandwiches (Bob lived on ham sandwiches at the office) and she kicked me out of bed and made me sleep on this yarn rug that our neighbor's dog used to sleep on. I don't know where I'm going to find a new job. Maybe I'll have to go back to selling water filters again (which is actually what Bob used to do before working here). Who knows. At least I have my blues band, the Big Poppa Blues Explosion (Bob actually did have a lousy blues band). And thank Christ for PINK magazine. It helps get me through those long, lonely nights sleeping on that dog rug. Sincerely, B.L., Queens, NY."
All letters in the magazine have titles. The title for this one was MY POOR WIFE DEPT.
The MY POOR WIFE DEPT. letters became a regular feature for several months running. Each month, I'd document the lame, 100-percent fake adventures of Bob Lyle.
Everyone at the office loved it. They roared with laughter when the proofs were passed around. Bob wasn't well-liked around here, so this felt like a bit of welcome revenge for all of us.
Since then I've written letters for nearly all of our departed employees--the pot-smoking girl in Promotions, the man in sales who took 2-3 craps a day and left the Post scattered around the stall, the guy in editorial who took Dale Carnegie courses at night and showed up every day in his JCPenny suits. They all got eulogies in the letters section.
With my own departure now a certainty, I'm guessing the proper thing for me to do, in my final letters section, is to eulogize myself.
Don't think I haven't been working on it.
4:17 PM
Friday, February 27, 2004
I quit today. Gave notice. Two weeks and I'll never set foot in this place again. Wasn't necessarily premeditated. Felt almost...automatic. Not unlike a biological function. No more discussion, no more thought was needed. No angst. It felt...inevitable. It was going to happen, whether I wanted it to or not.
Had originally planned on doing it the first of the year, but I'd managed to find reasons to stay.
Today, I ran out of reasons. It was my time.
Couple things worked as catalysts, I believe:
Joelle (who despises her current job) got a call-back for a job this week. "When I got the call, I got really nervous," she said. "And the office I was sitting in, this place that I've actively hated for years, suddenly felt like the safest place on earth to me."
According to the cliche, the prisoner gets so accustomed to his cell that it's impossible to even imagine leaving. Hearing Joelle articulate this for herself articulated it for me. Made me realize how--despite my contempt for this place--completely comfortable, how safe, I feel here.
Was in the men's room yesterday when I noticed on the broadside of one of the stalls a series of strange black markings. I realized that *I'd* made those marks several years ago, with my shoe. I'd gotten upset at something--I don't recall what exactly--and gone into the men's room and started kicking the stall as hard as I possibly could. The stall has had a slight tilt to it ever since (I really got into it). Those marks reminded me that I've been sick and tired of this place, fed up with this place, for a very long time. A lot longer than I think.
Was reading the Brad Land memoir Goat last week when I came upon the following paragraph: He's pushing himself away from them. From everything. Because he can't stand himself anymore.
That's me, I thought. I can't stand myself anymore. Can't fucking stand it. (As Merle Haggard once said, "I disagree with the way I've been living.")
I feel pretty good. Worried about money, about not having health insurance, but otherwise, god, I feel like a weight has been taken off my chest. I feel a nervous giddiness, I feel excited, for the first time in many years.
I like the way my co-workers are peering at me. I feel like a celebrity, like I'm glowing.
Don't have much in the way of personal effects here. Only thing I'm taking with me is the white ceramic cat. It's one of those one-paw-up cats that you see in dry cleaners and Chinese restaurants. I bought it in Chinatown a few years back.
This afternoon, I ceremoniously took it down from the shelf above my desk. I dusted it off, then carefully wrapped it in newspaper. I put it into my shoulder bag.
That's it. That's all I'm taking with me. The cat.
Everything else the wolves can divvy up once I'm gone.
3:11 PM
Tuesday, February 24, 2004
Last Thursday I met with a man who calls himself a "personal and business success coach." I'm in the market for a job, and a friend of mine thought the meeting might help things along.
The coach's name is Will Loale. I phoned him to arrange a meeting. We agreed to meet for lunch at Pershing Square, that cavernous restaurant directly across the street from Grand Central. Says in the front window "BEST PANCAKES IN NEW YORK."
I wore a sport coat and collared shirt--a far cry from the jeans and T-shirt I normally wear. Though I'm not successful in any tangible way, I thought it best if I attempted to *look* successful. Will walked in wearing a mashed pork pie hat and a knee-length overcoat, the sort of outfit a Staten Island vacuum cleaner salesman might wear. He was in his 70s, and moved with the deliberate gait of an older man. He had a white pushbroom mustache and slightly effeminate eyeglass frames. "You must be Scott," he said, putting out his hand.
The hostess led us to a table in the back. After the waiter took our drink order, Will placed his large hands flat on the table, then tilted his head forward until his eyes were peering over the tops of his tortoise-shell frames. He was silent, but clearly gathering himself for something. "So tell me," he said. "Tell me your wildest dreams. Let's have it. Maybe all the talk shows are calling, the newspapers are calling. Oprah wants you. You can be anything you want in the world...so what's that going to be."
I had no idea how to answer this. I fidgeted in my seat. I looked out the window at the people passing by. I'd prepared myself to tell Will my story--guy moves to New York, gets job as pornographer, six years later still has job as pornographer, etc.--but I wasn't prepared for *this.* "Well..." I said.
"Come on," he said, bracing himself against the back of the banquette as if I was about to blow him down with the gale force of my dreams. "Give it to me." Then he leaned forward, as if against that powerful Nor'easter and said, his voice low, "Be fucking out-RAY-geous."
I said that I wanted to be a writer.
"And?"
"That's it. That's as far as the dream goes."
He stopped bracing himself against the banquette. Clearly he was disappointed by the smallness of my response. I'd consulted Galvin before the meeting, and he'd urged me to be forthright with the man. So, I tried being forthright. "My girlfriend lives upstate," I said, trying to flesh things out for him. "Every weekend I take the Trailways bus to see her. Last week, on the way back to New York, the bus was going down Route 17 in New Jersey when we passed a cemetery. I looked at the cemetery and wondered what would become of me if I died. You know, idle thoughts. I wondered, What sort of headstone would I have? Where would I be buried? Would I be cremated? Who would make these decisions for me? Then a comforting thought occurred to me. If I could maybe write something, if I could finish a book, then I wouldn't care about headstones. I'd have the book. That's the...residue I'd leave behind. That book would be the residue."
Will scratched his stubble-covered chin. The waiter appeared and rattled off the day's specials. I took a peek at the menu. Pretty pricey, certainly more than I'd been planning on spending. Will ordered the crab cakes. I ordered the Waldorf Salad, though I had no idea what a Waldorf Salad was.
3:58 PM
Wednesday, February 11, 2004
Dad waged another campaign--this one was actually semi-successful--against socks with holes in them. No kidding. According to him, a sock with a hole in it was extremely low class. At dinner one night he told us a mournful story about going to the doctor's office, taking off his shoes in the examining room, and realizing he was wearing A SOCK WITH A HOLE IN IT. "I was...mortified," dad said. When he got home from the doctor, he promptly took the sock off and put it in the garbage. The garbage, he said, was the only place where a hole-y sock belonged.
My brother and I were, of course, completely oblivious to holes in our socks. It wasn't in our nature to check for holes, so on several occasions dad caught us wearing socks with holes in them. It made dad visibly angry to even *see* a sock with a hole in it. His face would redden, and he'd point his finger and demand that we take off the sock immediately. So, we'd peel off the offending sock, drop it to the living room floor...and inevitably the sock would wind up in the laundry and back in our sock drawers.
Once dad noticed that the hole-y socks were getting recycled, he devised a new tactic. He'd spot the hole in our sock, wouldn't do or say anything about the hole, but would make a mental note of it. Then later, when we were relaxing watching TV, he'd sneak up on us and suddenly put his fingers into the hole in the sock and RIP IT TO SHREDS. He'd leave it hanging by the elastic band from our ankles. That way, with the sock destroyed, there was no possible way we'd ever be able to wear the sock again.
The first time he did this to me, it scared the hell out of me. I was watching Gilligan's Island, my feet up on the ottoman, when suddenly there was a flurry of violence taking place down around my legs. "WHAT THE HELL IS HAPPENING?" I thought.
I heard a tearing sound. Felt cold air on my foot. I looked down at the sock, which now was reduced to pathetic rags.
"There," dad said, surveying his work.
Mom got the same treatment, too. "JESUS CHRIST, BOB," she said as he crept on her one night and obliterated one of her socks.
When mom started babysitting, taking in some of the neighbor kids during the summers for extra money, dad even terrorized them with his sock-tearing tactics. Some of the kids burst into tears when he did this.
Whenever I see dad's parents (my grandparents), I want to ask, "Just what the hell did you people do to him to make him like this?"
4:05 PM
Tuesday, February 10, 2004
Quick thing about my dad.
For years my dad waged an ultimately unsuccessful campaign against my brother and me for taking off our shoes while leaving the laces tied. For some reason, nothing angered the man more than the sight of a pair of still-laced shoes near the backdoor. Dad lectured. He cajoled. "It takes one goddamn second," he'd say, demonstrating for us, "to bend down and pull the lace." Then he'd bend at the waist and untie one of his work boots. "One," he'd say, counting on his way down. "See? One second." Then he'd bend again and again, bobbing up and down, saying, "One. One. One."
My brother and I endured these lectures, arms folded, skeptical expressions on our faces. He told us that not untying the laces wore out the shoes faster, though he was never terribly clear on exactly *how* that happened. "I can't afford to buy you new shoes each week," he said. "Money doesn't fall from the goddamn sky, you know." The lectures always ended with the same question from dad: "I just don't understand why you two can't you two be bothered to untie your laces?" He'd look at us, clearly perplexed, waiting for an answer.
I was the older one, so I was the one to speak up. "We'll try, dad," I said. It was the answer he was looking for, and I gave it to him. He was always visibly relieved to hear these words.
Then a few days later, he'd come home from work and there would be our shoes, still laced up, at the backdoor. I honestly did my best to follow dad's guidelines, but it always seemed like I was in a hurry when I got home, to pee, or get a snack or a drink, or watch a show on TV. So I slipped off the shoes, with the intention to go back and unlace them later on. But I never did go back.
One morning my brother and I went to the backdoor and discovered that our shoes were missing. Mom began searching everywhere for our shoes, rooting through the hall closet like a maniac. Dad was sitting calmly at the kitchen table eating his eggs and sausages, and chuckling to himself. Mom asked him if he knew anything about our missing shoes. "Of course," dad said. "They're outside. On the lawn. Where I threw them. That's what I'm doing from now on whenever I find the laces tied--throwing them out on the lawn." Mom was about to go out and get them for us when dad stopped her. "Let the boys get their own shoes," dad said. "It's the only way they're ever going to learn."
It was April, and the lawn was damp with dew. My brother and I scampered across the grass towards our shoes, taking huge, leaping steps. My socks soaked through immediately, sending a chill up through my heel. I grabbed my dew-covered shoes and ran back to the house.
For several weeks things continued like this--dad throwing our still-laced shoes out on the lawn, Sean and I scampering out there each morning to retrieve them.
Eventually dad got preoccupied with some money problems, and he forgot about his unlace-the-shoes campaign. The shoe-throwing stopped. Things went back to normal for awhile.
4:24 PM
Tuesday, February 03, 2004
Not sure the following story belongs here--or anywhere for that matter--but I *feel* like it does, though I may come to regret putting it here. Sorry in advance if I offend anyone.... Here goes.
Last Tuesday morning I was in the men's room here at the office having a pee when I felt a bit of gas trying to work itself out. It suddenly became clear that the gas was more than gas, and before I could take any preventative measures, boom--pants filled.
I locked myself into one of the stalls and tried--in vain--to get myself back together. Went through two rolls of TP. And my underwear was completely shot; I stepped out of them, tossed them into the waste basket.
Whole time I'm in there, I'm kind of in shock, laughing a little, unable to believe this was even happening to me. Muttering "Jesus, Jesus, Jesus," to myself.
I washed my hands about a million times and looked at my embarrassed face in the bathroom mirror.
My day clearly couldn't continue without underwear. There's a 24-hour Duane Reade downstairs which has a small Hanes section (I love drugstores in New York; they literally have everything), so I pulled my jacket on, took the elevator to the street.
I tried the double doors of the store; they were locked for some reason. I peered through the glass. I could see people inside, but they weren't customers--they were all employees. That's when I noticed the handwritten sign taped to the doors: REGISTER SYSTEM DOWN--CLOSED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE.
Unbelievable. In the seven years I've worked here never once has this Duane Reade been closed. Not one goddamned time.
Suddenly, my plight for new Hanes had taken a vaguely Kafka-esque turn. The sky was low and gray and looked like impending doom; it might snow at any moment. I stood in the middle of the sidewalk on Park Avenue, in the cold shadows of nearby buildings, underwear-free, people pushing past me, despairing as much as I've ever despaired.
There's another Duane Reade over on Lexington, about three blocks away. I struck out for there....
Thankfully, this one was open. I was unfamiliar with the layout of this particular store, so I had to do a fair amount of hunting before I found the Hanes section (it was under a sign that read HEALTH, BEAUTY). I also bought a travel-sized pack of Huggies and a box of Imodium. I realized as I set these items down on the register counter--Hanes, Imodium, Huggies--I might as well have had a sign taped to my forehead that read YES, INDEED, I'VE SHIT MYSELF.
For some reason the woman running the register chose to squeeze these items into the smallest, least opaque shopping bag Duane Reade offers. "Don't you have any of those bigger shopping bags?" I asked sheepishly.
The woman was clearly more interested in the Chaka Khan song playing on the store sound system than she was in tending to me. "We ain't GOT no more shopping bags," she said. End of story.
Back at my office, I locked the door, then proceeded to change into my new Hanes. Mid-change, I suddenly realized I was standing half nude in my office, something which has never before happened in all my years of working here. How many occasions does one have to get nude in his office? Not many. I felt terribly vulnerable; a slight chill ran up the backs of my legs. I quickly stepped into not one but TWO brand new Hanes. (I reasoned it would be best to two-ply it for the rest of the day.) I pulled my pants back on, ate a couple of the chalky-tasting Imodium, then tried to go about my day, business as usual....
...But it became clear that I couldn't function in any sort of normal capacity any longer. The day was over for me. The trauma of the whole shit event had derailed me. And I worried, quite honestly, that I might smell a little. There was nothing to do but go home.
I couldn't imagine trying to explain this to anyone, and I really didn't feel like making up some lie about my stomach or something (I'd taken a phony sick day just the day before), so I bolted, just shut down my computer around 2 and headed for the train. Nine out of 10 times, I reasoned, no one would even notice I was gone....
Went home, showered, changed, was relaxing, recovering, feeling better, when my telephone rang. I didn't pick up. No message. A few minutes later, it rang again. Again, no message. When it rang a third time, I decided to *69. The calls, to my dismay, were all coming from the office.
Around 5:30, voice comes on my answering machine. It's Mr. Traverson--the big boss--from work. "No one knows what happened to you," he said. "I've been trying to reach you all afternoon. You'd better have a VERY good reason for leaving, or else I'm going to be really upset with you. Call me as soon as possible. I need to know what happened."
Getting a call from Mr. Traverson at home--a man who I rarely ever see, and rarely ever speak to when I do see him--was an event. This was obviously getting serious. It struck fear in my heart.
I tried to put the whole thing out of my head, kept telling myself that I'd deal with it in the morning. Took me two hours to realize that I couldn't do this, that I was far too preoccupied. I phoned my co-worker Piffty on his cell, to ask his advice. Told him what happened, the shit, the whole deal. He started laughing. "That happens to everyone," he said. "Happened to my father once at hunting camp...."
"Really?" I said. Was a great comfort to hear this....
I said, "You know, nine out of 10 times no one would have even noticed I was gone."
"Well, this was the 10th time," Piffty said. "Today wasn't your lucky day." Piffty told me that Mr. Traverson was indeed very angry with me. "The thing to do is call him at home," Piffty said. "If you want to save your job, that's what you have to do. Call him."
"When?" I asked.
"Right now," he said. "He's probably just sitting there, watching some dumb TV program...."
I started laughing.
"What's funny?" Piffty asked.
"I'm laughing because you're right, that is what I have to do," I said. "And I'm laughing because I can't believe I'm going to actually do this. This is so goddamned surreal."
"It's really for the best," Piffty said, then gave me Mr. Traverson's private cell phone number.
I dialed. Took several deep breaths. He answered on the third ring. "Hello?"
"Mr. Traverson," I said, my voice shaking a little. "Sorry to bother you at home.... It's Scott. From Editorial."
"We were all wondering what became of you today," he said ominously.
"That's why I'm calling you, Mr. Traverson. You see..." I said, pausing momentarily to gather myself. "I was standing at the urinal peeing this morning. I felt a little gas moving along, and before I knew what was happening, I'd shit my pants. And that's why I left. I ran out of the office because I was too embarrassed to try to explain this to anybody."
Mr. Traverson didn't say anything. A space yawned between us, for one second, two seconds, three seconds. I felt it my duty to fill these empty moments with nervous chatter of some sort, but I managed to restrain myself, counseling myself with the thought that I'd said my piece, now let it stand, and let him react to it however he was going to react to it.
Finally, he spoke. "This is obviously a delicate matter," he said. "You know you can always come to me with these...private things. You can trust me. But the bottom line is, we're running an office here. Communication is the key. We need to know where everyone is at all times, or else the whole system breaks down."
"I know," I said. "You're right. I'm sorry."
"Well," he said, "I'll see you in the morning." And he hung up.
I hung up the phone. I was exhausted on a core level. I couldn't believe all the shit--literally--I'd been through the past 12 hours. What a day. What a motherfucking day. After I got off the phone, I drank. To use one of Galvin's phrases, I moved through all the beer in the house. The beer helped. It burned off some of the tension, calmed me down a little.
I can tell you this much: I've become much more respectful of my bodily functions. And the simple act of peeing is slightly more stressful than it once was. I'm doing it with a great deal of caution these days....
A week has passed since this happened. "Today's your one-week anniversary," Joelle wrote in an email this morning. She suggested I celebrate by buying myself a brownie. Everyone's a smart-ass, I guess.
3:29 PM
Monday, February 02, 2004
Amount of time spent watching the Super Bowl yesterday: 0 mins.
Amount of time spent searching the web this morning for photos of Janet Jackson's nipple: 4 mins. (before having a what-the-hell-am-I-doing-here moment.).
4:29 PM
Thursday, January 29, 2004
A bit of a conflict with the guy in the office next to me. He's the low man on the totem in the art department, an ex-Texan with a patchy beard that's no doubt a holdover from art school. We're not close or anything, but he's a decent sort, some hippie tendencies, a penchant for the hookah, but otherwise nice enough. One of the more tolerable people around here. (In the office Secret Santa a few years back, he gave me a Murakami novel, which was a drastic improvement over the pen/clock I'd received the previous year.) We both live in the same neighborhood in Brooklyn, and during the blackout last year, me, Jace, and his Japanese wife made the three-hour walk back to Park Slope together. I sort of became the de facto guide of the group, the Aragorn. Jace and his wife were like a couple of bumbling hobbits, wanting to stop along the way, rest, buy ice cream, take photos of everything, etc.
Jace has this tendency to play music while doing his work. All kinds of music. Bluegrass, reggae, salsa, jazz, a little Japanese New Wave. In the early afternoons, the volume always creeps up to a level that I find unacceptable. I can feel the bass in the arms of my chair, in my elbows.
Something about people who play their music loud, indiscriminately, without the slightest bit of concern for those around them, has always troubled me. No, not "troubled"--angered. It makes me angry. Gets under my skin. There's a sense of entitlement there, an irritating If-I-like-this-song-then-everyone-else-will-like-it attitude, a complete lack of concern for your fellow man's comfort.
Every day Jace turns his music up loud. And every day I go in and ask him to turn it down. Makes me feel like a fucking den mother. I hate it. And I hate it that he makes me do it.
Living in the same neighborhood, we take the same trains home together, and last night Jace and I found ourselves alone in the lobby together, waiting for the elevator. I'm having a bad week, I'm a little punchy, so I decided to confront him. My aim was to be light-hearted about things, be casual, but I'm not sure I was successful. I told him that I didn't understand why he felt the need to play his music so loud, why he made me come in every day and ask him to turn it down. "I mean, come on, man. Makes me feel like a den mother," I said. He giggled a little. Wiped his nose. "Well," he said. "I guess I like music."
This wasn't exactly the answer I'd hoped for. "I understand you like music," I said, "but why do you have to play it so everyone else can hear it?"
His eyes narrowed. "You're the only one who complains," he said.
This threw me a little, surprised me, was far more confrontational than I'd expected. "That's because it comes through my wall," I said, getting angry. "It shakes my desk. I was on the phone today, and I couldn't even hear the person I was talking to." (A small exaggeration.)
The elevator came, we boarded. I stood close to Jace, trying to keep the conversation going. "Can't you get headphones or something?" I said. "When I listen to music, I use headphones. Wouldn't that make more sense for everybody?"
"I'll look into it," Jace said quietly.
Outside the building, Jace and I made our way to the subway stairs, but I could feel him pulling away from me, wanting to be shut of me, to be shut of this conversation. Once we got down into the station, it was clear that things were strained between us, had turned awkward.
"So, how's your wife doing?" I asked, trying to warm things up again.
"Good," he said with an icy finality that I knew meant there would be no elaboration on the subject.
The two of us kept walking the length of the platform in silence. When the train pulled into the station, he suddenly moved away from me, entering the train through another door. Jace and I rode in the same car together, him at one end, me at the other. At Broadway-Lafayette, where we needed to change to the F, he bolted, running through the station like a gazelle, without even a glance in my direction. (We usually say goodnight to one another.)
I rode home feeling crummy about the whole thing. Goddammit all.
As I type this, I can feel him, through the wall. His presence. I haven't seen him all day. He's avoiding me, the bastard. Really, all I wanted was a dialogue, all I wanted was a little mutual understanding.
One good thing: there hasn't been a single note of music coming from his office. Nothing. Quiet as a church in there.
4:09 PM
Tuesday, January 27, 2004
(Found this in my inbox this morning....)
Pink Panty Hat Now Available Online.
The original Pink Panty Hat is now available for purchase online. The Pink Panty Hat features a white ball cap style hat with a pair of pink panties attached
to the top of the hat.
Why is this important? The Pink Panty Hat was developed for sports enthusiasts who want to crown a player who makes a lame effort in a particular sport. Let's say you are a male golfer and you fail to drive
your ball past the Ladies tee. The Pink Panty Hat is just the accessory for you. If you leave a putt less than halfway to the hole, once again, you deserve the ceremonial crown of the Pink Panty Hat.
Shooting some hoops and fail to hit the rim on a 10-footer? The Pink Panty Hat is all yours, my friend.
In softball, did you fail to run out a base and would have been safe? Well, there s a spot on your head
reserved for the Pink Panty Hat. Do you tend to throw a football like a girl? Yep, the Pink Panty Hat is
your trophy.
For more information on the Pink Panty Hat, check out the webpage at: http://www.april-fools.us/Pink-Panty-Hat.htm>
(Feeling too lazy to write a blog entry and instead used a lame press release about Pink Panty Hats? Sounds like I deserve a Pink Panty Hat....)
11:52 AM
Friday, January 23, 2004
So Piffty and I were supposed to organize the video room yesterday. Only Piffty ended up giving me a line of excuses all afternoon until I ended up organizing the video room by myself.
Lately the old German woman who has worked here as the photo editor for 700-800 years had been complaining about the state of the room. "THERE'S FUCKING SHIT EVERYWHERE," she said in her thick German accent. "YOU CAN'T EVEN GET IN THE FUCKING DOOR. JESUS." She has a unique way of saying "Jesus." It sounds more like "Sheez-oose." She fights with the printer in the art room every day; it eats her documents and she shouts "JESUS, THIS FUCKING PIECE OF SHIT" while she pounds away on it.
She was right; a decent-sized pile of VHS and DVD boxes, fresh from California, had accumulated. One of my co-workers had already pillaged a few of them, leaving a trail of packing peanuts across the floor, and empty boxes, like discarded husks, scattered around.
Piffty has been very big on developing a new organizational system in the video room, very gung-ho about it. According to him, the old system, aka my system, wasn't working anymore. Each video and DVD arrives with chromes, i.e. pictures from the movie. My system: put videos on the shelves and toss the chromes all together in a big bin. Piffty's system: Keep the chromes for each video with the actual video.
Piffty's system has some obvious advantages, yes. It's very difficult to search through a big bin of chromes when you're looking for a specific sheet, so keeping the chromes attached to the videos makes perfect sense. My counter-argument is that we only need 4-5 sheets of chromes each month, so instead of spending hours rubber-banding every sheet of chromes to its respective video, I would prefer to spend 10-15 hellish minutes tossing through the big bin. But that's me.
Piffty has seniority on me, so Piffty's system is now the new system. Approved by corporate and everything.
I was standing there rubber-banding chromes to videos when the photo editor passed by the room. "OH HAPPY DAY. IT'S ABOUT FUCKING TIME. JESUS," she said. She stood there or several minutes with her arms folded, observing me. After realizing that I wasn't going to respond to her, she left.
Once she was gone, I got down to business and did some serious organizing. Once in awhile I can really get into a mindless task like this. Oh, I went to town, moving videos from shelf to shelf, putting the really lousy ones (so bad no one has stolen them) on top of a filing cabinet. The video room is a small, windowless, airless office. I actually broke a sweat and noticed that ink from the box covers was turning my fingers black. It's probably the closest I've come to real manual labor in months.
Once I finished, I gave the room one last once over, then returned to my office. I phoned Galvin, having decided to close out the day by bullshitting with him. Galvin was the one who gave Piffty his nickname. He'd met Piffty once, and aptly observed that Piffty has a way of dismissing whatever you've just said with a "pfffttt"-ing sound. For example, asking Piffty if McHale's has the best hamburgers in New York, his response most likely would be "pffft." Translation: "Of course they have the best hamburgers in New York. Why are you even asking me this?" It sounds like air coming from a bicycle tire. Piffty's a nice enough guy, just a little fucked up, as we all our.
So Galvin and I get on the phone and start shooting it when who should appear in my office doorway but Piffty. "So," he says, "what's the new system in the video room?" He's obviously just come from the room and assessed my work. "Bottom shelf, newest videos. Next shelf up, videos that are a few months old," I say.
"What's that stuff on the top shelf?" he asks. "That she-male stuff?"
"All that she-male stuff is on the top shelf," I say. "It's garbage."
Galvin, still on the line, hears me say this and starts cracking up. Hearing Galvin cracking gets me laughing. So there I am, holding the phone to my head, and laughing, with Piffty staring at me. "We've got to get that she-male stuff out of there," I say, still laughing.
Piffty looks like he's trying to think of something to say, something big maybe. Unable to come up with anything, he lets out a very quiet "pffffftt" and heads off down the hall....
4:03 PM
Wednesday, January 21, 2004
The past few weeks I've been wholly preoccupied with a freelance job--this Sopranos story for Black Book. It's a big story, and I wanted to give it my best shot, which means I've been under a decent amount of pressure lately, certainly far more than I'm used to.
Last Wednesday, I found out that I needed to do a revision. I promised the editor that I'd turn the revision around by morning. That night, predictably, I had trouble sleeping. I couldn't seem to calm myself down. I managed to get a few hours of sleep towards dawn, and when I woke up, I noticed a curious orange glow coming in my bedroom windows. I'd witnessed this phenonmenon before, and knew right away what it was. It meant snow had fallen in the night. (The snow causes the light from the street lights to refract in a strange way, turning everything a dull orange.)
It was quite a bit of snow, too. Each step of the fire escape looked like it had a large loaf of freshly baked bread on it.
A man lives in the apartment across the way from me. From what I can gather, his apartment is identical to mine, only in reverse. He's a school teacher--that's all I know about him--which means he gets up around the same time I do in the morning. I feel like there's a subtle rivalry between us to see who can get up earlier. His lights are almost always on by 5 a.m., so he usually beats me.
I fixed coffee, then checked to see if my neighbor was awake. Sure enough, his lights were coming on: first the bedroom, then the bathroom, then kitchen. Then, moments after they'd come on, they went off again one by one. His apartment was dark.
I obviously don't know what happened to him, but my guess is the snow had closed the New York City schools, and having seen the snow and discovered that his school was closed for the day, the teacher had decided to go back to bed.
With the wind howling down the building elevator shaft (I can hear it from my apartment hallway), I pulled on my boots, jacket, gloves. I gathered the Sopranos notes that I'd made the previous night. Before I headed out, I took one last look at the school teacher's dark apartment across the courtyard. The bastard. What I wouldn't give to be able to just crawl back into bed like that, to not have to deal with revisions, or the cold, or the snow, or the F train. What I wouldn't give....
Envy isn't a strong enough word to describe what I felt. No, what I felt was probably closer to full-blown jealousy.
This happened a full week ago, and for some reason I'm still thinking about it....
4:08 PM
Monday, January 12, 2004
Joelle is a reader. Always has been. Each week she gets a pile of books from the library--fiction mostly--and spends her spare moments reading her little eyes out.
The weirdo.
She does actually own a television--an older model, 13" TV/VCR combination unit--which she keeps at the back of a closet. Whenever we rent a movie, we'll drag the TV out, but for the most part it stays put in the closet.
Joelle does watch TV when she visits me. (I don't have cable, but with a pair of Radio Shack rabbit ears I can pull in most of the local stations.) The promo ads for "Alias" always excited her for some reason, so for Christmas I took a chance and got her the DVD box set of the first season.
Her parents and I were obviously on the same wavelength this year because they bought her a DVD player for Christmas. I hooked it up for her a few weekends back, and it gives me great pleasure to report that Joelle is now obsessed with "Alias." Her TV has been moved--possibly even permanently--out of the closet. She has, in fact, built a kind of make-shift entertainment center in her house. I saw it for the first time last weekend, and I laughed when I saw it. "Remember the old days?" I said. "When you used to read?"
Truth is, it makes me feel good to think I might have corrupted her a little. All that reading couldn't possibly have been good for her.
Now she watches two or three episodes of "Alias" a night. I get the full report. Over the weekend I watched the show's pilot with her. It was actually pretty good. Joelle has always loved scenes involving girls doing karate or fighting, and "Alias" has no shortage of them. Once, about a year ago, I was sitting close to her on the couch in my old apartment while she/we watched an episode of "Xena." During a fight scene, Joelle broke out into a sweat--literally, she started sweating. She was damp underneath her T-shirt. I asked her about it. "Well," she said, clearly embarrassed, "I get kind of excited during the fights."
Last weekend, while watching a particularly impressive fight scene in "Alias," I suddenly felt her temperature going up. Sure enough, the girl was sweating.
The little weirdo.
3:53 PM
Wednesday, January 07, 2004
My brother and his wife have a dog. Golden retriever. Name of Baron. He's got a bit of gray around the muzzle, but still manages to be playful on occasion. Christmas Eve, we were all sitting in the living room of my brother's house, eating potato chips along with a Hickory Farms cheese log. Baron was begging, going from person to person, looking at each of us with sad, pleading eyes, and sometimes sniffing the floor for any stray crumbs.
During a break in conversation, my father looked at Baron as he made his rounds, and said, "That must be what a nigger feels like."
WELL, ZIPPITY DO DAH! HAPPY FUCKING HOLIDAYS, EVERYONE! THANKS FOR COMING! DRIVE HOME SAFELY! SEE YOU NEXT YEAR!
Sad thing is, this was one of my father's *better* moments over the holidays....
1:13 PM
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