I have a new journal now.

Please let me know if you would like its name!

Every day I get into work, everyone, from the store manager on down, is genuinely happy to see me. I get handshakes and pats on the back.

Today, one of my coworkers comes up to me and says, "You know, I don't know why, but my son thinks you're hysterical." The son is, I'd say, about twelve. She'd brought him in the other day while she was doing some shopping; he and I had a brief exchange: I was coming up from behind him, and he was talking excitedly about something and he flailed an arm around to emphasize a point, accidentally hitting me on the shoulder. I made a big deal about being in pain--"That's my only shoulder! You ruined the only shoulder I had!"--and when he started to get upset I smiled and laughed, and he laughed to.

"Really? Me?"

"Yeah. He said the guy with the red spiky hair, so that's you." I'm known for my hair. For the first time in my life I have cool hair. I'm known for that and a Pac-Man hoodie I bought on a whim that I wear almost constantly. Half of the people I work with call me "Pac-Man" beacuse of it.

One guy Josh that I was paired with for a little while on my first day, he and I have completely opposite schedules (he works mornings and I work nights) so we never see each other. Today we happened to have some time scheduled together, and he and I and a couple of other people were in the back wasting time. People brought some food and cakes and things to celebrate Thanksgiving and we were eating some cake. "It sucks we don't work together more," he said. "I knew you'd be cool the first day you worked. Remember, I was showign you how the pallet elevator works and I said, 'Yeah, and you push the "up" button to make it go up,' and you said, with a straight face, 'What does the "down" button do?' I figured you had to be cool."

"Either that, or I'm too dumb to know what the down button does," I said, and everyone laughed.

They think of me as funny. I can crack anyone's shit up whenever I want to.

I'm working hard, and people are recognizing me for it. "Good job, man," several people will say when I've faced a section by myself or done a lot of putting-up-of-things. "You did an awesome job on that." I never thoguht of myself as a hard worker, and truth is Z would actively deny my work ethic, my work ability, would paint me as lazy and unable to accomplish whatever obscure goal he considered (but didn't practice) to be a hard day's work. And yet, it seems I have one. It seems that I do a good job, that my work is appreciated, that I'm not just taking up space and watching the clock.

The customers like me. I have a lot of leeway with them--we're actively encouraged to be friendly with them--and I'll joke and tell stories and when I work demo I'm merciless. I will complement women's figures in order to ply them with cheesecake. I will guilt people into accepting food. And when it's good, they'll give me a smile, like I've done something good.

I said a while ago that it feels like charm is my only skill, and that I feel like I've been made to feel guiltya bout using that, that my charm is not real work. That it won't make me money. And yet, it seems that my charm is not only my biggest asset at TJ's, but it makes the workplace a lot more--not only comfortable for me, but it seems like I've managed to fit in really well there. I not only get a lot out of working there, but I seem to add a bit to it.

Again, is this the sort of job I want to work in for a long time? Probably not. Do I have a fantastic day every time? No--there are some days that I just dont' feel like coming in and that helping customers is more of a chore. But I don't dread coming to work, I'm not getting ill from it, and when I quit, no matter what, I feel like I've accomplished something.

This year sucked. I wasted so much time and money on a depression that I wallowed in, on a guy who didn't seem to value either, on a lot of stupid petty shit. The way I acted and lived over the summer, I was waiting, expecting, hoping, for someone--anyone--to just take a look at me and say, "What the fuck, this isn't you." Like I've said before, I got to a point this year where I needed to basically rebuild my life.

I get to a point every so often where I basically rethink a lot of stuff about who I am, what I do, what I'm like, what my personality is, and I'll subtly alter it. And I've done that over the past few weeks, few months. And I like who I am right now. I have a band that's for once starting to do well (we've got a show on the 30th, you should go!), a group of loyal and good friends who've oddly enough stayed through all of my shit, some parents who love me anyway, a new piercing, and a cool hairstyle. Over the past month I've read five novels and that's something I wasn't able to do during the entire summer-_I was too distracted to concentrate. I have time to play videogames again (though the days of marathon sessions beginning the moment I woke up and ending at 5 in the monring are long gone and I don't think I'll ever finish Final Fantasy XII at the rate I'm going), time to watch DVDs again. Suffice to say, I'm not 100% happy--it'd be nice to be able to get laid and to have a solid relationship for once, or at the very least a date for the Christmas party, but otherwise I'm good. I'm sick of the self-loathing and the bullshit games I like to play and the tortured past and all of that.

The subtitle of my livejournal is "the memoir as self-annihilation" which is inspired by a passage in Dave Eggers's A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius. In it, he details the memoir as an act of self-destruction--as a way of exorcising one's life. I titled this journal when i was a sophomore, when I started the journal, because I wanted to be dark, I wanted to be That Guy, you know, the introspective meaningful one. And I think I accomplished that pretty well here.

I think it's time to move on.

I don't know if I want to post any more. I don't know if I want to post solely about creative-related things, or witty observations. I don't know if I want to be so exhibitionistic as I am on here. I don't know if I want to switch to paper for those things. I need some time to decide.

When I get a paper journal, I don't always write to the last page. Sometimes I just consider a journal to be "done" and I go straight to the next one, leaving ten, twenty, fifty pages blank. I can look at the cover of any jounral and know how I was feeling at the time, what that time was like for me.

This one feels finished. It feels finally complete, and it's time to get another jounral, another mood. I need to cut some people off and give a higher priority to some others. So I'm goign to take some radio silence for a while, and then at some point some of you--and I hate being so elitist about this, but some of you are going to have a new "friend of." And that'll be me. And if you want to add me back, please do. I doubt there will be any surprises.

Thank you for the comments, for the support, for the love, for the questions, for the flames, for all of it, for sharing yourselves with me, for all of that, thank you, but it's late, and I'm going to bed, and I'm goign to wake up, and I'll be in another place entirely, so be careful, dress warmly, be safe, and happy, and free.

--R.

It's bad enough that I can't get "We Are All On Drugs" by Weezer out of my head.

Oh, no. I'm singing the lyrics to That's Amore to the song.

Work will be fun!

Life is miserable! I totally have work and I totally have a stomachache and they totally got rid of the candied ginger that I like and how will I deal with this stress and still keep an active social life OMG! Maybe I'll just kill myself!

Oh wait. I don't have any real goddamn problems! Whew. That solves things :)
Honestly, though, I would prefer to not work register today, only because I did it all yesterday and it was ridiculously crowded. I would be much happier just stocking, or rotating, or even doing demo. Or, you know, bathroom duty.

When your day begins with a multiply-tattooed and -pierced man ordering you to show him your nipple, you know it's gonna be a good day.

( Read more... )

Okay, kids:

Wednesday, November 15th, at the West Side Bar and Grill in West Paterson, New Jersey (1145 McBride Avenue), King Chef will be having its second show! We've got a great set planned, and though we're really nervous we're going to have a good time and it's going to be a good show. Please, if you can, come and bring as many friends as possible--the show is FREE.

Unfortunately, it's not an all-ages show, so you've got to be 21 and up to get in, but if you're OVER 21, I would love to have you come by!

Load-in for us is around 9, and the doors of the place are open from a reasonable hour (it's a restaurant/bar after all); we're telling people to get there BY 10:00; we're not sure exactly what time we're starting but it should be some time around then.

I hope to see some of you there!

All I can say is that working demos/samples at TJ's has given me many an opportunity to flirt and be flirted back with some really hot guys.

The old Richard (flirty, coy, sexually desirable) is coming back!

I have started work on a project that has been brewing for maybe two years; I haven't felt ready until now to write it. I'm actually trying to get permission to do this as an independent study for my last writing class, with the hopes of having it produced.

What I want to write is a one-act, one-man show about Alan Turing, the father of artificial intelligence and one of the people who helped break the Nazi's code during World War II. My interest, obviously, lies in the fact that he was gay and treated horribly under British law as a result.

A play about Alan Turing exists, called Breaking the Code by Hugh Whitmore, but while I haven't read it, everything I've read shows it to be, and I mean this as damning with faint praise, a wonderful piece of realist theatre. ("realist theatre" being, to me, one of the grossest oxymorons I've ever heard.) Anyway, that play seems to focus on the social codes of England at the time, and that's not my interest. Everything makes it seem to be very genteel and mannered, and I don't plan on my play being mannered at all. For one, I am making no attempt to write as a 1950s British man, and I'm going to say "fuck" a lot.

Which brings me to my next point; if I think I'm up to it, and I get permission to have it produced, I'm going to act it myself. We all know I'm not an actor and that, frankly, I hate to act, but I've written about 5 pages or so and I'm starting to get a very personal stake in this. I'll see, anyway.

I bought one biography of him today and it's not even the "definitive" biography (which I ordered from England as their edition plus shipping is oddly cheaper than the US edition). I'm 20 pages in and I have 2 pages of notes, one being character notes and the other being things I need to research. There's a huge amount of gaps I have, which makes sense since I'm only a couple of days into the research phase. I'm really excited about the project; I'm going to do a lot of audience participation and I think I'll have a lot of fun with it.

According to http://www.yourcreditadvisor.com/blog/2006/10/102_personal_fi.html, "In 2004, bachelor's degree holders earned an average of $51,206 per year, while high school graduates earned only $27,915."

I have a bachelor's and the most of a master's; when I was working a 9-5 salaried job that was driving me crazy, I was making the most money of most of my friends, and I was taking home 30K. I'm making much less at Trader Joe's, and everyone there is at the very least most of the way through college--there's no one there who's still in high school, and as far as I can tell everyone does indeed have a college education.

(two minutes later)

Okay, #16 is, "Don't major in English. If you love studying English, there's nothing wrong with that. Just be aware that English majors generally don't earn very much. Six of the top ten list of majors with the highest salaries are engineering majors, with chemical engineering topping the list.." So, yeah, personal fulfillment.
Why the hell didn't I just skip to working right after high school, again? At the very least, why did I go for a Master's? Oh, right. Liberal arts=personal fulfillment.

Anyway, I hate money, so it doesn't matter anyway.

http://nodwick.humor.gamespy.com/cats/cats.htm

::melt::

My favorites are "go cry, emo kid," "im in ur shower," "INVISIBLE SANDWICH," "I made you a cookie...," "why you do this?" "i has a flavor" and "wait i'll fix it."

God, I"m about to pass out! But the CUTE!

http://www.ps122.org/performances/carrie.html

Please, someone want to see this with me. PLEASE!

I know I only have one class left, and it's probably gonna be an independent study...

...but next time I decide to take a class wehre I either have a rough draft or a competed paper due every single week, slap the shit out of me and make me unregister.

I'm going nuts!

Normally the way the band has worked is I've come with a song, or a sketch of a song, and we've filled it out from there. The closest we normally come to writing together is we instruct someone to come up with a riff or a chord progression, or a drumbeat in the case of Erik, and then we all add on from there.

Today, though, we wrote a song that was almost completely hive-mind.

Daryl started off with a little noodling on bass. I began playing a couple of single notes on my guitar; Erik came up with a way to make them sound better, and by gum, they sounded awesome. Daryl began tapping out a slightly different drumline, and then we fiddled a vocal line. I'm not even singing the whole thing--just the first verse and half o the chorus; Daryl's taking the second verse and the other half of the chorus. It was completely written as a band and while it may not be our best song yet (it's still too early and too rough to tell), it was certainly one of the most awesome band moments I've ever had. The song sounds very early Modest Mouse, which is both a good and a bad thing: while I've always wanted to write a song like that, it is taking a very obvious influence. However, it's a new direction for us and if we can keep up writing songs in this manner, it'll definitely be a great thing for us.

We had an honset-to-Goodness band meeting with a written agenda and everything,a nd during it I made the point that the three of us are all far from virtuoso on our instruments. I fully admit to being only a decent guitarist and a mediocre singer; Daryl's relatively new to bass and this is his first real band; Erik's probably about the best at his instrument and there's definitely more in the way of technique he can have. However, what we lack in technical ability we've certainly got in passion and energy. Our real strength has got to be songwriting--we'll have some awesome songs.

I'm really excited about this incarnation of the band. This weekend we plan on recording a lot, so I might ahve some mp3s soon.

Anyone know if there's a term for an inability to smell? I've always had a terribly weak sense of smell, and I'm wondering if there's such a thing as a complete inability--I mean, there must be: if there's a function of the human body, there are definitely people for whom that function is impaired.

I just find it strange that any time I mentioned the lack-of-a-strong-sense-of-smell thing to people, they seem so taken aback. Look at me: my eyesight is complete crap, I have measurable (if not, to me, noticeable) hearing loss: why shouldn't my nose be weak too?

To look up an answer to my question, I went on the Wiki page "List of disabilities". Look at the "other disabilities' section. Does it seem to you that, according to the outline, "cluster headaches" and "senility' are considered under "substance abuse"?

Is "substance abuse" and "addiction" really considered a disability anyway?

Three interesting people came on my line. In order from least to most, and oddly enough in chronological order, they were:

1) The mother of my best friend from middle school, who I haven't seen since I was about 14. (Come to think of it, I haven't seen the friend since then either.) I knew she looked familiar, and then she was the one who asked my name and recognized who I was. He's doing well; apparently he's teaching phys ed and health at a school in Jersey City, so good for him. I gave her my revised narrative (I'm working at TJ's to pay for my master's degree, I'm doing well in school, I'm in a band and we're getting some notice.) Maybe he'll stop by, who knows. Either way it was cool.

2) My high school French teacher. We conducted the entire transaction in French; she was impressed by the fact that I'm still good, and I was surprised at how easily I was able to do it. She's doing well also; she bought a pie.

3) was Academy-award nominated Actress and recording artist Queen Latifah, whom I almost did not recognize. The buzz in the store was that she was shopping, and she came on my register. She wasn't wearing makeup and was dressed very simply--jeans and a t-shirt. I treated her, obviously, as I would any other customer, and she was very nice. She bought flowers, flour, and canola oil. My theory is that she's visiting someone's house and giving the flowers as a gift, and that she's going to bake some sort of cake with the flour and oil to bake for dessert. Queen Latifah is an excellent houseguest, as the 2003 film Bringing Down the House will attest.

Other than that, started my shift at 9 AM, hit total burnout at around 11, and basically trudged my way through the day. I have work tomorrow then I'm off on Tuesday and for once I am off next weekend! :D I haven't had a weekend off since I started working there, so it'll be very nice. I think King Chef plans to record.

My band is looking for a logo.

If you'd like to make a design that the three of us can vote on, we'd love to have you do that! It'll need to be relatively plain and outline-y--we want to make patches out of them--but a full-color option would be nice as well.

If you'd like to design something, let me know and I'll give you a couple guidelines. I'll need to have it by November 5.
Thanks :D

To celebrate having a new job, singlehood, the band, and the fact that, in general, life is shaping up to be really good, I bought myself Fargo and the new Decemberists album.

Why is it that the best two CDs to come out this year both feature several songs about Japanese folktales, told in nonchronological order? Coincidence?

Today I started formally writing my third solo album. I've got four tracks sketched out and I've got some ideas for a fourth. I want this one to have a little more of an electronica side to it. I'm gonna be playing guitar, accoustic, but I want to have some very organic sounding samples for beats. I'm wondering if that's something Icould (or should) do myself, or if that's something I want to enlist someone else's help for. Of course, I have to record the first two albums first, of course, but it semes like songs are coming VERY quickly, and I'm going to take them down while I can. I'm very happy about that.

I've been afraid to say this out loud, but I think I can officially say that I'm almost out of my year-long slump. I've cut a lot of bad out of my life lately, and I'm leaving only the bits that are helpful to me, and I'm wishing I'd dne a lot of this sooner.

Thanks for being there for me.

IF you happen to be a gay man...

...and IF you meet up with a bisexual guy one night...

...and IF you meet his attractive girlfriend...

...and IF both of them take an immediate liking to you...

...and IF you happen to be the first hairy gay guy this bi guy has ever met (direct quote: "I've never met a gay guy with a beard before, most of the guys I know shave everything!)...

...and IF they make a point of getting your myspace contact information so they can stay in touch with you...

...and IF the girlfriend makes a point of talking about how their relationship is extremely open...

...and IF the girlfriend passes on the guy's compliments to you ("He thinks you're really cute," another direct quote, this time from her, with a note of excitement at the thought of your and her boyfriend hooking up)...

...well, what would you do? If the answer is, "feel incredibly flattered and jerk off later on about several interesting fantasies, but not actually do anything because you're a little odded out by the very real possibility of sucking off a guy who, earlier in the day, had gotten his pole waxed by a woman," then congratulations, because that's exactly what I did when all the above happened to me today!

Not that I'd really do anything in a situation like this (although the possibilities are quite kinky), but this was like the biggest ego boost I've had in a long time. For months I haven't really felt sexually attractive, and that's bad--in a lot of ways I put a lot of value on my attractiveness and my ability to get men to want to fuck me (which may also be bad). The fact that I managed that tonight felt awesome. I know that confidence is a major factor in attraction, and this is a good shot of that which will make me even more attactive next time! Now all I've got to do is find a a single gay man, preferably one with big muscles and a tremendous cock, who's looking for adventures of a horizontal nature, and I'll be able to land him no sweat!

I still hold true to my theory that "before 10" is a fucking stupid time to expect someone to be working, especially if that means a complete reset of their biological clock on a night where that's impossible.

For example, me waking at a time that I'm normally getting ready to get to sleep!

I plan on doing a good job, of course, but complaining about the hour every chance I get. If I'm enough of a mournful bastard, maybe they'll never give me this shift again.

Tonight was King Chef's first bar show.

Our new bassist worked out pretty well, and except for the next-to-last song in which we all screwed up at some point, we did an awesome job. I'm excited and happy, and hopefully we'll actually play some more shows this time.

What sucks?

It's midnight, and I have a 5 AM shift tomorrow. I'm goign to pass out as soon as is humanly possible. I'll be able to get at most 4 hours of sleep. I dont' plan on worrying a lick if I'm a little late tomorrow. They owe me for giving me such shit hours :)