About ThisAbout Me
Email Me
Bookmark
Charlie Hatton
Brookline, MA
Apparently my insolence will be tolerated.
Today, I’d like to talk about my showers.
Okay, not all about my showers; this isn’t that kind of blog.
(And you can thank your lucky undies that this isn’t a photo blog, while you’re at it.)
So stick with me here. I won’t promise that I’m not going to gross you out, but… well, I’ll at least ease you into it, okay? I’ll begin with the basics, and work my way down the scale into the things that aren’t to be mentioned in polite society. Deal? Deal.
So, first I should probably mention that I’m a top-downer.
(See? I’m not making any lewd comment or turning that into some sort of Kama Sutra reference or ass-slapping joke. See how good I can be, even if it’s killing me?)
What I mean is that I start with my hair, and generally work my way down my body.
When I’m washing in the shower, that is. That sort of order doesn’t really work for much of anything else, except maybe getting sweaty with your main squeeze. After all, ‘The first base is connected to the — second base. And second base is connected to the — third base…‘ You get the idea.
But that’s about it, and even then, you don’t finish with the feet, now, do you? Sure, if you’re into that sort of thing, you might start with the feet, but if it’s uglies you’re looking to bump, you’re generally going to find them somewhere in the middle of the body. At least, that’s where the ‘bumping’ ones will be. You may run into other ugly bits on the body, of course, but you’re probably not going to get anywhere by bumping with those. I tell you this from years of experience. Don’t make the same mistakes that I made.
(Or risk the same lawsuits.)
Anyway, I wash myself from the top downward. First, I shampoo my hair, or ‘lather‘. Then I wash it out, or ‘rinse‘. I do not, however, ‘repeat‘. Life’s too short to be standing in the shower all fucking day with my eyes smooshed shut. Besides, I’m not filthying up my hair by swimming in a pool or standing under an oil rig all day. So once is enough.
When I’m done rinsing — but not repeating — I dry my hair just a bit with a washcloth. I figure I’m gonna need my eyes for most of the rest of the procedure, so I should nip the drips from above in the bud. A few shakes through the follicles usually does the trick. Next, I lather up the washcloth and give my face a good scrubbing. This achieves the obvious goal of cleaning any dirt from my facial region, while also applying soap to the skin around my eyes, again rendering me effectively blind. In other words, completely negating all that work I just went through to dry my hair. I realize this, and yet I do not alter the routine, washing my face later or bothering to rinse the soap from my eyes. I am, of course, a moron.
(In my defense, I usually shower within a few minutes of waking up, and my mind is a notoriously slow starter. In stark contrast to certain other bits, which often seem all too eager to, ahem, ‘rise and shine’ in the morning. But no one wants to hear about my, uh, thumbs. Um, yeah. Moving right along.)
So, from there, I work by touch. Armpits and arms, chest and back, legs and feet. Then there’s the middle bits. I save those for last. Not because I have special plans for them or anything. (Usually.)
It’s just that none of the other parts of the body like to be washed after the cloth has delved into the ‘Underwear Zone’. So those areas get taken care of at the end of the process.
And that’s pretty much it — I rinse off, towel down (again, from top to bottom), and I declare myself clean for the day. Pretty standard stuff, really. Sure, some people shampoo last, or do some special thing to their face, but the routine isn’t all that earthshattering. But it’s the other things that happen in the shower that make it really interesting. Things like what, you ask? Well, I’ll tell you. All you have to do is ask, you know.
First of all, I do a lot of thinking in the shower. Not the deep, heavy-lifting sort of thinking, mind you. Nothing useful like that. No, instead, I have weird, convoluted trains of thought. Frightening, sometimes. There’s something about being naked and warm and wet and half-asleep that brings out the bizarre side of me, I guess. I must have been a crazy son of a bitch in the womb.
(Yeah, not like when I’m blogging. Whee.)
Anyway, I’ll give you an example. I had a now-forgotten series of thoughts yesterday in the shower that culminated in one question, and it was this:
‘If someone were to put a gun to my head and demand that I sing one song without getting a single word wrong, what song would I choose to sing?‘
Now, first of all, who the fuck has thoughts like that? And — since the answer to that question is rather obvious — why did I have that thought, and how the hell did I get there? (And if you thought my schizophrenic topic-jumping was confined to my writing, you’ve got me all wrong, bub. I actually edit for you people; try living in my brain sometime.)
But more to the point — what song would it be, anyway? I mean, if I’m going to bother to dream up such an oddball question, I might as well answer it, right? So I stood there in the water a while, and eventually decided on ‘Waitress in the Sky‘ by the Replacemnts. It’s short, the words are all clear, and I know it by heart, which are all prerequisites, of course. If I went ‘um‘ing and ‘er‘ing or mumbling through a bridge, I was gonna get my brains blown out.
(Hypothetically speaking, of course.)
So, I stood there for another couple of minutes, water sliding off my back, and softly sang it. You know, to see how I’d fare with this imaginary and strangely demented gunman. And, of course, I mis-sang one bit, garbling the ‘garbage man, janitor, and you my dear‘ line. Which disappointed me no end, of course, seeing as how I’d hypthetically just had my head splattered all over the shower wall. Bitches. Still, I did get through the song without forgetting any words; I just have to hope I’d be able to keep calmer if the real situation were to ever come up. Which it won’t, because it’s ridiculously stupid. But, you know, if it did.
(Hey, while I’m here, why not drag you nice folks into my shower, as well? Still speaking proverbially, of course. But what song would you pick? In my little world, I decided that it couldn’t be a fairy tale, or old folk song, or anything like that. It had to be a song by a modern band or singer, with real words (no instrumentals or sample-only tracks), and should have at least a couple of verses. So what would it be? What song could you recite verbatim, under pressure, without a single misstep? And after you pick one, can you really do it? Sing it to yourself out loud and see whether you’d survive this little test. Enquiring minds have nothing better to do right now.)
Anyway, that’s the kind of thing that randomly strikes me in the shower. But there are also some rather non-random thoughts that arise, as well. And the most common by far is, ‘Shit, I don’t have a clean towel or washcloth, do I?‘ How to get around this little pickle? Well, assuming that the initial assessment is correct, and I don’t have any clean towelage, I’ve got three options.
Now, none of these options are good ones. I’ve tried them all at one point or another, and not one of them is pretty. But I have to say, the third choice is the one I keep coming back to, and the one I’d recommend. I’ll tell you why.
First of all , you have to buy into an important concept. And I mean buy in; don’t just pay it lip service. Believe it. You must believe in the power of ‘The Other Side‘. As in, ‘The Other Side‘ of the towel or washcloth. This is an absolute necessity if you’re going to recycle a used towel. See, you must believe that whatever funky, nasty, disgusting thing that might have been deposited on that hunk of fabric is safely tucked away on ‘The Other Side‘.
So as you bring that towel to your face, and you think:
‘Hey, didn’t I wipe my nasty underarms on this thing yesterday?‘
You’ll always have this comforting answer:
‘Well, yeah. But that’s not on this side of the towel. I wiped them on The Other Side.‘
Or if you hesitate to rub that washcloth all over your body, remembering:
‘Whoa, this thing was picking my ass just this morning!‘
You can remind yourself:
‘Ah, but not the side I’m using now. That was The Other Side!‘
You can see how powerful this simple trick can be. Practice it well enough, and any used item becomes fair game. Any towel or cloth that doesn’t actually have visible stains can be redeemed with this method. It’s just that simple. No matter how heinously the towel’s been treated — maybe you pull your towels through your legs and floss your ass with them, no matter! — the ‘The Other Side‘ technique can work for you. Just remember, the unspeakable horrors that were let loose on the towel always, always left their filthy remnants on the side of the towel you’re not currently using. In other words, The Other Side. Keep it in mind; it could save your life one day.
(Or at least a trip to the linen closet, which could theoretically kill you. Do you really want to be found naked and dripping and dead in your hallway, clutching a clean fluffy towel to your chest? Or would you prefer to simply dry your bod on a towel that’s not really dirty — all the gross shit’s on The Other Side, remember — and go merrily on your way? I know what I’m choosin’.)
Well, I hope you’ve enjoyed this little glimpse into my showering life. (The neighbors seemed to like it, before we put up the bathroom blinds.) And I hope I’ve helped you to make the right choice the next time you find yourself in your own tub without the proper towelage. It’s all a matter of mind over perfectly reasonable disgust. Of course, it helps to have your significant other’s towels and cloths to choose from. There are plenty of areas on my body that I wouldn’t want to rub on a towel that I was going to dry my face with.
(Unless I used The Other Side of the towel, of course!)
But the list of those taboo places on my wife is pretty damned short, which makes her towels much easier to reuse. Basically, if she didn’t literally fart on the towel at point-blank range, it’s still in play. And even at that, the fart would be on The Other Side. Of course, those things can seep, so maybe I wouldn’t risk it.
Anyway, that’s about all I can tell you about my showers for the moment. If I think of anything else that you should know, or I have any other freaky hypotheticals come up, I’ll be sure to tell you. And honestly, it’s pretty damned likely. I shower at least once a day, whether I need it or not, so there are plenty of opportunities for new epiphanies and posers. I’ll just be sure to dry off before coming to the computer to blog them for you. Exactly what I’ll dry off with, I can’t really say yet. But with any luck, it’ll still be damp and smell like my wife. Well, like most of her, anyway. Just as long as it doesn’t smell like the parts she dried on The Other Side. ‘Cause that’s just nasty.
Permalink | 2 CommentsIt’s not completely random. Just think of it as ‘topic kebabs’.
Well, softball starts up again today. And I know what you’re probably thinking —
‘Softball? Starting? Mid-September? In New England? Nuh-uh.‘
And to you, I emphatically retort: ‘Yuh-huh!‘
(See, ma, that year on the debate team in high school really did pay off!)
(Oh, and by the way, stop thinking in sentence fragments. You keep that up, your brain will freeze like that one day.)
Anyway, Team Guinness and I are embarking this afternoon on yet another quest for a title. This game begins the clinically accurate but frighteningly-named ‘Frostbite Season‘. And if you’ve had any late-fall experience in the Boston area, you’ll know just how apt the name is. A couple of years ago, we played a game in a snowstorm. If not for all the blood smeared on the ball from the cracked skin on our fingers, we’d have never been able to see it in the snow. So thank heaven for split cuticles, eh?
Many of our games are in barren, remote places way outside of Boston, too. Places even further north of the city, like Lexington and North Reading.
(No, no — not Reading, folks. You hit Reading, and then you keep going! Like two more whole miles, or something! It’s crazy!)
I’m just hoping that we don’t get into any ‘Donner party’ nonsense one of these Sundays, out in the wilderness like that. Of course — assuming I’m not the first course — that might not be all bad. Some of our players do look pretty tasty, I have to admit. I’ve been thinking about eating our catcher for a while now, actually.
We shouldn’t have any problems today, though. The game’s just a few blocks away from my house, and it’s still pretty summery around here. So it should be fun — other than the fact that we may only have four people showing up. See, the fall is actually worse than the summer, as far as people showing up for the games. You’d think we’d all be too scared or disgusted to travel far, what with all the New York yahoos stampeding up here to look at the autumn foliage.
(Which I simply don’t understand. People, they’re leaves. Lee-eaves. What’s the attraction? Sure, I can see that having brown, and red, and yellow instead of boring old green is an improvement, but just because something’s better doesn’t mean it’s particularly good. Look, ‘naked’ is generally ‘better’, but do you really want to see Kathy Bates in her birthday suit?
(Or, for the ladies in the audience, Brian Dennehy?)
No, not unless you have an icepick at the ready to gouge your eyes out. And you certainly wouldn’t travel hundreds of miles to ‘ooh‘ and ‘aah‘ over it. (‘Ewww‘ and ‘aaugh‘, maybe, but that’s different. Liver-spotted. Yellowed. Different.
Now, I’m not trying to compare our majestic northeastern forests to pudgy, aging film stars. But, well — I guess I just did, so I’m gonna go with it. Look, I wouldn’t drive several hours to spend a weekend gaping slack-jawed at these old Hollywood farts, nor any others I can think of.
(Okay, so maybe if Natalie Portman decides to display herself in the nude over a weekend on a bet or something, I’d schlep over to see that. But hey — she goes to Harvard, so I could probably walk there. The argument stands.)
So, I suppose I just don’t see the point when it comes to the leaves. Sure, they’re kind of pretty, but if you’ve seen one deciduous forest closing down shop for the year, you’ve seem ’em all, right? And even if you haven’t — how long can it possibly take to get the gist? Ten minutes? Twenty, if you’re a little slow? And that deserves a weekend trip? Nah.
No, I think the real reason these damned New Yorkers ooze their way up here every damned year is because they want to rub our noses in the fuckin’ Yankees, and the insurmountable lead they have every frickin’ September over our belov’d Red Sox. Yeah, you don’t see these bastards comin’ in the spring for the flowers. And they don’t drive up here for the snow in the winter, when the Celtics are kickin’ their Knicks’ ass up and down the hardwood. No. Just in the fall, for ‘the leaves’. Right. Yankee-lovin’ dickheads. Everything that’s wrong with the world is Yankees fans’ fault. You people know that, right?)
Anyway, what the hell was I talking about? Softball? I think I was bitching about getting enough people to play.
(I was bitching about something, anyway, and that seems like a good enough place to pick it back up.)
So, the fall is actually the toughest time to get people. There are still Red Sox games for people to go to, and late vacations, and our shortstop has Patriots season tickets. Other folks decide that it’s more fun to watch football and drink beer all day and night than to play softball and drink beer just all night.
(Which sounds so damned reasonable when I write it down like that. Hmmm, maybe they’ve got a point there.)
Plus, there’s apparently an awful lot of jiggy-gettin’-with around here at Christmastime, because it seems like every year, there’s a baby being dropped in September or October, which takes another player out of circulation for a few dozen years.
(Or at least until the spring… but honestly, none of the guys whose wives have had kids have ever come back. It’s like a giant black baby hole. Fear it!)
So it’s quite possible that we’ll end up ‘scrimmaging’ today, rather than playing a game that counts. I think we’ve got six or seven people confirmed, and another couple who might show. But we have to have nine to play, and we really should have ten or more, so I don’t have high hopes. I suppose the best thing that could happen is that we forfeit right away, pack up all our shit, and hit the bar. We’ll have lost a couple of hours of early-afternoon drinking, but we can make up for that. We’re Team Guinness, after all. Even with diminished numbers, we’ll put away our fair share. I just hope there aren’t any New Yorkers at our bar. If we forfeit our game, I am so not gonna be in the mood for those goddamned snooty Yankholes. Grrr.
Permalink | No CommentsSilly rabbit… coherence is for kids.
The wife and I made a Home Depot run today. It was our first in a few weeks. Well, my first in a while, at least. I think she may have popped over last weekend to pick up a couple of things, but I haven’t been on the premises since… wow, I don’t even know. Since I went to get a propane tank for our grill, maybe, in anticipation of our fabulous party a few Saturdays ago.
(Oh, by the way, sorry if you notice me using phrases like ‘fabulous party’ and ‘popped over’. I watched an episode of Queer Eye for the Straight Guy about an hour ago. Apparently, it takes a while to wear off.)
Anyway, we went to the Depot on a quest for concrete, or concrete-like substances. We have a series of low (and not-so-low) garden walls in front of the house, all in various stages of disrepair. Taken together, I’m pretty sure we have every freakin’ type of stone wall known to mankind on our property. I fully expect to clear out weeds in the back yard sometime and unearth the rest of Stonehenge.
In all seriousness, though, we have a bunch of different walls. A veritable plethora, even. Just off the porch, there’s a short red brick affair. Walk along the sidewalk toward the stairs leading to the street, and you’ll pass stone block, some slatey sort of thing, and a flat patchwork kind of large-stone jobbie. Get to the street, and holding up the hill — and therefore the house — is an uneven mosaic wall with stones of varying sizes, and cracks of various panic-causing lengths and depths. All of our walls have cracks, in fact, and they all have places with loose stones, or leaning blocks, or weird jagged edges that look like they’ll tumble at any moment. It’s as though the flowers and grass are pissed off, and are busting loose — albeit at the piddly rate of a couple of measly inches per year — to rise up against their humanly oppressors. Namely, us.
And, of course, the single most valuable weapon during any uprising is lots and lots of concrete. And concrete-like substances, of course. So we went looking for some today, to stem the tide of these rogue vegetative vandals. I figure that if we can just patch up the biggest cracks, we’ll buy back a few years’ time before we really have to deal with the problems, and rebuild some of the walls. Which is not a project that I’m eager — or likely — to undertake.
You see, I come from a long line of ‘red thumbs’. Some people are green thumbs; they know all about plants, and how to grow them, and care for them, and make them flower and flourish, and most importantly how to prevent them from revolting against their humans. These people… are not my people. No.
My people have red thumbs — red, swollen, misshapen thumbs with gnarled knuckles and blackened nails. Our thumbs get that way from botching home improvement projects. We hit them with hammers, we feed them into table saws, and we burn them with blowtorches. We wear our twisted and charred digits like badges of honor, to commemorate the projects that we’ve tackled around the house. Tackled, that is, and failed miserably, usually barely escaping with our lives. We’re simply not meant to improve our houses — if we had any damned sense, we’d just be happy living ‘as-is’, and moving from home to home as the old one falls into disrepair. We’d be nomads, I suppose, dragging neighborhood after neighborhood down with our inertia. Not the ideal way to live, of course. But at least we’d no longer have thumbs so ugly that we have to wear mittens to go out in public, or so grossly swollen as to require their own seat assignments when we fly. It’s not the easiest way to live, let me tell you.
And so, the prospect of rebuilding walls is not one on which I like to dwell. Walls are made of heavy stuff — bricks and concrete and cinder blocks and mortar. Even now, my thumbs are throbbing in sweaty anticipation.
(And while I’m generally pretty happy when some part of my body is ‘throbbing in sweaty anticipation’, this is different. It’s not quite the part of my anatomy that’s usually being ‘aroused’, for one thing. And for another, the ‘action’ being anticipated doesn’t normally include having the dangly bit in question crushed under a half-ton of cement. I mean, shit — I like it ‘rough’ and all, but that’s just damned silly.)
Anyway, at some point, the walls are coming down, and I think it’s safe to say that I’ll be the one building new ones in their place. So, I’ll probably be losing a foot, or an ear, or worse, before long. But in the meantime, we picked up some sort of squeeze-bottle mortar and a caulk gun. That should buy us a few months, at least, until I can read up in my ‘Brick Walls for Dummies‘ book. This ‘wall caulk’ not the heavy-duty shit, of course, but it’s also relatively safe. I figure the worst that’ll happen is that I’ll smoosh my thumb with the caulk gun trigger, or glue my head to a wall with a gray glob of goo. But — assuming that I pry myself away before the crap dries — I should get out of it alive. This time.
We’ll probably tackle the walls tomorrow. Hopefully, it’ll go well. But if not, you’ll know that I’m lying under a broken pile of rubble, or that the plants just cut to the chase and came after me. And they’re smart, the little bastards. They can’t move so fast, but they’ll hit you where it hurts. And they can spot red thumbs a mile away. Maybe I’d better rebuild those walls, after all. When I die, I want flowers around my coffin, not choking the life out of my thumbs and stuffing themselves down my damned throat. I ain’t goin’ out like Grandpa.
Permalink | 1 CommentIt’s ‘Chcken Soup’ for those voices in your head.
I’m finally on my way towards jobdom. Which is not to say that I actually have a job yet, but at least I finally have job prospects. And I’m all about the baby steps.
(And the baby formula, when we run out of mayonnaise. But I’m pretty sure that’s not relevant just now.)
So, after two full months of placement agencies calling me, talking to me, telling me how good — no, great — no, *wow* — my resume looks, and then toddling off to god-knows-where to ignore me completely, I’ve finally begun to have real, live interviews. With real, live managers. At real, live companies. For real, live money, even.
(Though some of the money is realier — and livelier — than others.)
Here’s the score so far:
Company #1 is a bio-research non-profit organization. One of my old co-workers from my last company turned down a job there, but asked another ex-co-worker if he’d be interested. He wasn’t, because he’d already lined up his own new job, but he passed it along to me, and sent my name back to the first guy, and he told the company I’m interested. So far, I’ve only traded emails with a lady from the company, so I don’t think I could have possibly pissed them off enough to be out of the running. On the other hand, that was on Tuesday, and I haven’t heard anything back yet. Maybe I shouldn’t have used ‘Yo, phat chicky‘ as the salutation, after all. Eh. Live and learn.
Anyway, assuming that I ever do hear back from these folks — and that the correspondence doesn’t consist of a restraining order and a summons of some kind — I think working there would be pretty interesting. Not terribly lucrative, but that’s okay. As long as the mortgage gets paid, and we have enough left over for beer and dog biscuits, I’m cool with that. I’m not looking to jewel-encrust the toilet seats around here, or anything like that.
(Though I do have the fourteen-karat gold-plated nail clipper set. Seriously, you can never skimp when it comes to personal hygeine.)
Of course, there’s another possible issue with this place. See, there are really two non-profits involved, bits of which are soon to merge into a third organization, which is where the person filling this slot will likely end up. But in the meantime, it’s likely to be a ‘work in one and get paid by the other’ type of scenario. Which, again, is not the end of the world. My checks can come from the ‘Flubbo Jenkins Clown College‘, for all I give a damn, as long as the checks convert seamlessly into cold, hard cash. But the up-in-the-airyness of it all makes me just a bit nervous. I can see the definite possibility of having about seven bosses, all telling me to do different shit. Ever see Cool Hand Luke?
Manager One: Boy, what in the hell is your HTML doing on the VP’s intranet?
Me: Sorry, boss. I’ll move it to the corporate site.
Manager One: See that you do, boy. Move the whole dang program over there. The VP don’t take kindly to sass.
Me: Yessir, boss.
Three hours pass…
Manager Two: Son, I hear your Java code is all over the VP’s corporate site.
Me: But … he told me —
Manager Two: Boy, don’t you sass back. Just git that code back on the staging server, dangit.
Me: Yes, boss. Right away, boss.
Four hours later…
Manager Three: What in the Sam hell is this? Get this code off the staging server, boy!
Me: But… but I… he…
Manager Three: You got somethin’ to say, son? Don’t make me git the switch out.
Me: Yes, boss.
Manager Three: Awright. Now git this code off there and onto the VP’s intranet. And make it pronto!
Me: Okay, boss. Whatever you say, boss.
After three days…
Manager One: Son, I thought I told you to get this code off the VP’s intranet.
Me: Yes, boss.
Manager One: Well, then, why the hell is it still there? You sassin’ me, son?
Me: No, boss. I…I… aaaaaaauuuuuaaaaaaaahhhhh. Boss, don’t hit me. I’ll be good, boss. I got my mind right now! Just don’t hit me any more, boss!
Of course, then I’d just recover, and try to escape again, and I’d end up shot dead after hiding out with George Kennedy in the farmhouse. And nobody wants that. So I’ll have to find out more before I’d take this job.
Company #2 is in the healthcare industry. A friend of my wife’s works there, and put in a good word for me when I turned my resume in. Of course, that was three weeks ago, so I was actually a little bit surprised when the company emailed me yesterday to set up an interview. I’d started to think that maybe my wife told her friend what I’m really like, and they’d decided not to take any chances.
But, it seems I’m still in the running, and I’m scheduled for a Tuesday interview. They offered me Monday morning at 9am, or Tuesday at 2pm. Hmmm, let’s see. Get up on Monday at seven or so, rush to get ready, and then fight commuter traffic all the way to some building where I’ve never been, and I’m likely to get lost while trying to find? Or roll out of bed at eleven, take a nice leisurely shower, grab some lunch, and cruise over there at one-thirty when there’s no one else on the road? I hate to seem under-eager by putting off the interview for a day, but I think I’ll take door number two. As long as you’re offering, that is.
Besides the convenience factor, that decision also moves me up the depth chart just a little. See, if they have pre-defined time slots, then you’ve got to figure that they have multiple candidates, and they’re scheduling two or three a day to come in. And now someone else is going to get that Monday morning slot. So I’ll be better than at least one person in this round of interviews — really, who looks good and can manage to concentrate at nine am on a Monday morning? I’m lucky if I have underwear on at that point. Luckier still if it’s my underwear, and it’s covering all the bits that most people typically use it for. So, I figure I can’t do any worse than next-to-last. Good strategy, huh?
Then there’s Company #3. This one came out of the blue, and has really been a whirlwind ride so far. I got a call on Monday from a recruiter describing the job. Fine. Like I said, I get a lot of recruiter calls, but none of them had turned up anything before. They’re like telemarketers that I have to be nice to. More ass than assistance, for the most part.
But this one seemed different. First of all, he actually told me the name of the company in question. Most of the peckers (and peckerettes) who called me were about as forthcoming as a gay catcher in the New York Mets locker room.
(Not that I’m naming names or anything… but it rhymes with Briazza. I’m just saying.)
Anyway, this guy was more informative than most. He told me where the job was, and that he’d worked there himself. He pointed me at their web site and emailed me the job posting. He said he’d get back to me by Wednesday at the latest.
And, by jove, he was true to his word.
(Whatever the hell a ‘jove’ is. Just ignore that part. I thought it would sound cool and refined and all, but I don’t know what the hell it is. I guess I’ll just have to stick with ‘by cracky’ and ‘who’da thunk it’. *sigh* I’ll never get invited to any of the good parties, will I?)
Anyway, he called on Wednesday, and asked whether I could do a phone interview. ‘Sure‘, I said. He asked whether 10am the next day would be okay. ‘I guess I can find a way to roll out of bed before then. I don’t have to have pants on or anything while I’m talking, do I?‘ He assured me that I didn’t, and we were all set.
So, I talked to a very nice lady for about forty-five minutes on Thursday morning, and things went just swimmingly. So swimmingly — see, it’s still italicized; it was just that swimmingly — that she asked whether I could come into the office in person. ‘Absolutely,’ I said. How would later that day work for me? ‘Just peachy, ma’am.’
(Okay, I didn’t say that. I’m not Andy Damned Griffith over here. Nor am I Opie, or Barney, or anyone else on that frickin’ show. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, of course. I’m sure that qualifies as ‘classic television’ in many backwards Southern areas. And there was some value in the show, I guess. Seriously, what man out there hasn’t lusted after Aunt Bea’s pie now and then?
Um, yeah. That may have come out wrong. I think I should probably get back to whatever I was talkin’ about. Let’s never speak of this again, all right?)
Back to the phone interview. After putting me on hold for a few seconds, the lady asked whether I could make it in by noon. That same day. ‘Well, okay, I suppose I can sponge off and put some pants on. I don’t know if I’ll get to shave, though. That’s usually an afternoon thing.‘
But I went, and I even found time to shave beforehand. And — from my perspective, anyway — the interview went well. I spent most of the time talking to a guy in the group, and then to the lady I’d talked to on the phone, who was in charge of the operation. They were both cool, and down-to-earth, and I think they’d be easy to work with. Which sucks for the blog, of course, if I get the job and have no snippy office snarkiness to report. But that’s okay — I can certainly make some up to entertain you with. Or create some by being surly and unreasonable for a couple of days a week. You know, just for the material. That’s just how dedicated I am.
So, I chatted with the recruiter guy afterwards, and he said he’d get back to me today with feedback, which he hasn’t done yet. I’m hoping he’s as good as his word again. The longer I wait for the call, the more I wonder whether I said the wrong thing yesterday, or accidentally insulted someone’s mother, or did that weird thing where I zip my fly up and down when I get nervous, without realizing what I’m doing.
(Oh, if only they’d make button-fly dress pants, my interviews would go ever so much more smoothly.)
Anyway, that’s just about it, although there’s a chance that a company #4 is in the mix now. A friend of mine sent me an email with a job description that I might be able to fill. But he’s not gonna be able to fill me in on the details until next week — who knows how many multinational megalithic corporations will be clamoring to hire me by then?
Well, it’s hard to say, really, but I imagine somehow that it will still be four. Or less, depending on who I manage to alienate and offend between now and next week.
(Do what you’re best at, I always say.)
Still, it’s nice to finally be getting a little action. Maybe soon I’ll be gainfully employed again, after all. That’s probably a good thing, no matter how much I was looking forward to becoming a starving freelance writer or a struggling stand-up comic. Those things can wait just a bit longer. I figure I should work for another few years before I ask my wife to support me full-time in my frivolous endeavors. Another three or four ought to just about do it. No sense in putting off my true callings too long, right?
Permalink | 3 CommentsGot blog?
This is my one hundredth post here at the old blog.
(Well, okay, it’s really my two hundred and first, if you count the 100 Things Posts About Me that I recently finished. And maybe those should count. Still, this is the one hundredth post on the main site, and so I’m happy to commemorate the occasion. Hey, any excuse for drinking beer and getting naked on a Thursday night will do. Am I right, kids, or am I right? You know what I’m sayin’.)
Anyway, I’m not really sure how to mark this occasion, so what I thought I’d do is belatedly lay down some ground rules around here. Basically, I want to let you know — now that it’s already painfully obvious — what you can expect from me in this space. So let’s see how far that takes us.
First, I’m going to write something every day. A particular post may not actually make it live until the next day (like, oh, I don’t know — this one), but when that happens, I’ll post a second one on that day to make up for the boo-boo. Obviously, if I’m ever able to take a vacation again, then I may have to make an exception. On the other hand, I don’t know whether I could survive a weeks’ worth of this crap stuck in my head without writing it down — I’d probably start bleeding from the ears after two or three days. My week at home over Christmas break will be a good test.
(Of course, a week with the family over the holidays usually makes me bleed from somewhere, anyway, so I’m not sure whether I’ll be able to notice any difference.)
Also, there’s the issue of content. This is not a sex blog, nor a porn blog, nor a dirty-talking netsex blog.
(Though I do reserve the right to have sex, watch porn, and type sweet horny nothings while I still own the blog; I’m just not gonna do any of that while I’m writing it.)
I suppose I should elaborate on that just a bit — it’s quite possible that I’ll mention sex (or porn stars, or marital aids, or anatomically-correct sheep-shaped blow-up dolls), but you’re not going to hear about sex that I’m having. For one thing, you don’t really want to see that. And for another, I’m not sure that my wife reads this stuff, but I did give her the URL, so she might. And the last thing I need is to have her kick my ass because I let slip that we did the L’il Bo Peep routine and blew up the Mr. Fluffers doll for the occasion. Which, um, of course, uh, we didn’t. So far as you know. Moving on.
I’m also not going to talk about politics. There are approximately seventeen billion political blogs out there, *wah*‘ing about this, or *boohoo*‘ing about that, but usually trying to oh-so-cleverly point out that the dickheads on the other side of the aisle are a bunch of morons. Well, frankly, I’ve got no interest, and so you won’t see that shit here. If I wanted to deal with that kind of ‘he said, she said‘, finger-pointing cliquery, I’d go back to junior high school. So if that’s your thing, I’m afraid this isn’t the blog for you.
(The good news is that just about every other blog is the blog for you, so go ahead. Knock yourself out.)
Let’s see, what else? Okay, two things about the tagline. You know, the ‘Nothing but…‘ dealie at the top of the page. First of all, believe it. Meaning, a lot of the stuff I write about ‘never actually happened‘. Of course, frighteningly enough, it’s almost always based on something that did happen, which is often much worse, and far more embarrassing in one way or another. And don’t even get me started on the shit I haven’t told you.
(Man, if I could only afford that therapy.)
So high-fidelity realism isn’t really my bag, either. (The 100 Things posts are a bit closer to the truth — since they’re really about me — but I have been known to take the occasional liberty there, as well. So if you don’t want your liberties pilfered, you’d better watch your back.
Also, I’ll come up with a new tagline for every post. It’ll be in italics, just below that post’s title. It’ll have nothing to do with the post — it’s just there so I don’t wear myself out changing the damned tagline every three days because I have the delusion that I’m getting cleverer. Instead of the other way around, that is. Sure, it puts more pressure on me to come up with one for every damned post, but at the time, that seemed like the lesser of two evils. One hundred taglines later, I’m not so sure. I think I’m just a moron, no matter which way you slice it.
(But an organized moron, and that’s at least something. See, after about twenty taglines, I started writing them down, so I wouldn’t accidentally reuse one. Which I’ve almost done a couple of times, so I’m glad I have the list. Not that anyone would notice — or care, even if they did — but I thought you should know. It’s just that kind of unnecessarily anal nitpicky perfectionism that I bring to (both of) you readers, each and every day. I suspect it’s also what keeps me from being successful, sticking with a career, or learning how to dress myself. But I’m willing to make that sacrifice, for you. Never say I don’t suffer for my art.)
Okay, I guess that’s about it. Really, in the end, my goal around here is to write things that make me giggle. And on a good day, things that make me imagine that other people would giggle at them, too. Preferably while they’re drinking a Coke at work, causing them to spew fizzy brown crap out their nose and onto their monitor just as the boss walks by. Really. If I can get just one person fired for inappropriate guffawing while reading my blog, then I’ve done my job. I just pray that one person doesn’t turn out to be me.
So, that’s my hundredth post. Thanks for reading it. And a million thanks (that’s a hundred times a hundred times a hundred, you know) for those of you who stop by on a regular basis, and comment, and link me, and keep coming back for more punishment. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate it.
(Okay, stop. Hold on, I’m gonna cry. Hold on — don’t look at me!)
Okay, I’m back. And I do thank you. I’ll show you my undying gratitude in the only way I know how — I’ll come back tomorrow (okay, later today, in this case) and write to you again about things that may or may not have happened, and try to get you fired for reverse-snorting cola all over your desk. Really, it’s the only way I can repay you.
Well, okay, there is one other way… but I think Mr. Fluffers needs a rest tonight. Don’t you?
Permalink | 1 Comment
![[Subscribe]](/blog/images/subscribe.png)
