two.points.collapsing

am i allowed to say, “i’m making a mixtape” if i’m putting it on a cd? for come reason saying “mix cd” just doesn’t have the same effect. perhaps something about my geeky past has given the word mixtape a certain sentimental meaning that i don’t want to let go just because i have friends with cd burners now. another one of those things i just have to slowly let go in the rising tide of technology i guess.

so i’m making a mix CD then, but i’m also on my way to a raquetball date (non-romantic, sadly), so i will have to write more later. just wanted to get something down for tuesday in case i forgot later.

monday morning and uh oh! i’m not at work.

yes, i made it out of there finally. ideally, that will be the final time i ever have to touch a piece of microfiche. i told my boss friday that i didn’t want to work this semester, and it was as if she flat out wasn’t going to let me quit. she said things like, “oh you, don’t want another job because it will just be too exhausting compared to this one, which is relaxed and easy.” and, “we can cut back your hours a little so you can do whatever you need to do, and you can still come in, okay?”. all this she said as if the matter were settled, i was just foolish in thinking i wanted to quit. i agreed out of politeness more than anything that i’d think about it over the weekend, which i did, which went something like this:

hmm… work 10 hours for not much money doing something which makes time crawl, which frustrates and depresses me in its mindlessness, and which adds absolutely nothing to my skill set in any way, OR stop working here and (a) not have to do anything until 2pm two days a week during which i could sleep in or even better, get up and spend the time doing valuable things such as start looking for summer internships, a place to live for next year, or doing reading for my 20 unit class load, and (b) not have to spend my two hour lunch break two days a week trapped in a basement library, nor the hours of 3-5pm on fridays — when i should be free and frolicking with joy — hitting my head against filing cabinets waiting for the clock to tick faster…

so really the choice was very difficult for me, but somehow i came to the conclusion that i’d be better off letting this opportunity go. it’s true, someday i may regret it and go crawling back, just hoping i could get my hands on a sweet microfiche filing job again, but for now i was willing to take the risk. so i emailed her this morning and told her i’d thought about it, but sorry, it just didn’t work for me this semester.

and moving on always feels really good.

this morning i had a very waking life moment (which was my favorite movie of the year, i decided, beating out tenenbaums, wet hot american summer, amelie, how high, and all the other outstanding films from this year, along with the multitudes of awful ones like that royal whopper of a disappointment, planet of the apes).

i’m assuming you have probably heard of lucid dreaming, that is, having a dream in which you know you are dreaming and take control of the events in your dream. well, i’ve heard about this but never experienced it before in my life. today, after a couple of other regular dreams (i slept in pretty late), i was having a dream with a motif similar to some dreams i’ve had before, but which i will not attempt to describe because it just wouldn’t make sense. anyway, dream-brian — as i will call the me in my dreams to make the telling of this less confusing — was washing his hands in a bathroom and saw himself in a mirror, and said to himself, in the dream, “i love when i have dreams like this” (referring to the repeated dream motif). at that point, dream brian thought to himself, “hey wait, i just realized that i’m dreaming! that means i can do whatever i want!” at this point dream-brian got very excited, because he’d never had this sort of experience before. he left the bathroom and went into the main room of the house he was in, and of course, began thinking about what any guy in this i-can-do-anything-i-want situation would start thinking about…

that’s right.

so as dream-brian is mulling over who the lucky lady will be, and very interested to see how this all works out in this newly discovered state, dream-brian thought to himself, “geez, i sure hope i don’t wake up…”

which of course trailed off into me waking up. i opened my eyes nervously and was sad to see that yes, i had ruined everything. i’ve never been that frustrated with the plain fact that i was awake before. what a rip off. i really tried to go back to sleep soon enough and pick up where i left off but we all knew that wasn’t going to work.

(sigh)…well, i suppose my interactions with supermodels will have to be limited to daydreams for the time being. so it goes.

how this got past me, or furthermore, why i didn’t post something about this sooner after i heard about it, i guess we’ll never know. nonetheless, let me share with you something that blew my mind.

when i was in illinois for a week, i spent one night at my grandparents’ house in bourbonnais, illinois. while there, they alerted me to the fact that the kankakee metropolitan area (yes, that’s a real town. doesn’t it sound weird?) — of which the town i grew up in, bourbonnais, is a part — was rated the worst overall out of all the metropolitan areas considered in a recent study, or something like that. my grandparents didn’t know many details, but they did say that the town was mentioned on david letterman a few times because of its new title.

i just now remembered that i wanted to look up more information on this, and although it seems difficult to find much online, i did find the name of the book, the places rated almanac, that bestowed this lovely title on my former home. i did find a couple mentions, like one article which talks about letterman’s poking fun at the city, and another one that just shows the rankings, with kankakee at the bottom. at least one place includes a quote from the book in which the author says that although kankakee ranked dead last (that’s overall–apparently it’s not dead last in any specific category like recreation, safety, cost of living, etc.):

“it looks good,” Savageau [the author] says, “if you’re looking for a low cost of living, a 90-minute drive from Chicago, surrounded by prairies, where nothing much is happening.”

so that’s something that makes me laugh, basically. now i don’t feel bad that i was so bored and complained so much as a junior high kid with no car and nothing to do. apparently it wasn’t unfounded.

of course, it’s friday night, i’m living in the second biggest city in the country, and i’m sitting here in my apartment blogging, so maybe the problem wasn’t with the town i grew up in…

umm…. i gotta go.

well the advertising class i went to tonight does look promising, it turns out. it seems like we’re going to cover all the things i should probably learn, since i’m thinking of going into advertising, and in fact the professor does work for an ad agency in LA. and she’s pretty young and down to earth, so it may just be a good class after all.

plus another observation making it okay; if i were not interested in my future, or didn’t care about having a slacker major, i would (or i guess i should have a while ago) switch my major to communications. that school is 80 percent girls, i swear, and the majority of them cute. it’s bizarre. as i walked into the comm. building to go to this class, i felt as if i shouldn’t even be there, like i was sneaking into a girls’ dorm or sorority house or something. it was just so densely filled with girls i was intimidated. tempted to run out screaming, i somehow made it to my class, which was also well over two-thirds female and many of them cute. so this might not be so bad a way to spend the beginning of thursday evenings after all — learn about my chosen profession (potentially) while in a room full of comm chicks. i guess it could be worse.

okay, complete change of subject: i got a dozen new dvd’s for christmas, so i’m still trying to work through watching them and their many special features. it took me a couple days to get through the phantom menace stuff, and i even postponed the commentary until a later date because i was star warred out. so tonight i watched being john malkovitch, which is a weird but cool movie. but have you seen the extra stuff on this disc? it’s so weird! the “intimate portrait of background driving” and “interview with spike jonze” both had me utterly baffled. i’m not sure if spike jonze is brilliant or just scary. i suppose he could be both. like me, once i get those black contact lenses like the guy from limp bizkit.

yeah, i know, i should have let that one go yesterday, but i am a big dumb idiot, after all.

a class that only offers a single section, which runs once a week from 6:30 to 9:50pm? that sounds impossible, and if not then at least just plain awful. but yes, i have that unique pleasure. of being in school until 10 on thursdays. what was i thinking? “oh, i should take this, i’ll learn some useful stuff…”

well all i have to say is that this class faces even more pressure than a regular one does to deliver some sort of usable or interesting content. i’m giving up most of my evening for this “introduction to advertising” it proposes to give me. i demand quality here. of course, i should consider the fact that maybe it’s at night because the professor works during the day at some advertising job and could maybe be a good person to get to know as far as a career move…

god i hate having to think about “networking”. i don’t think my people skills are what they should be if i’m going to shmooze my way into a well-paid business career. i would be better suited to reviewing books or something, where i almost never have to rely on personal skills for success. i guess that’s what i’m here for though: to learn!

let’s practice:

“yes sir, that was a good joke, how about a raise?”

“can i get you more coffee sir? how about a promotion?”

“please don’t lay me off because i’m the new guy, i have to pay for my college loans, sir. shall i assume the position?”

haha… just don’t let me get away with posting dilbert jokes. if this happens, please force a cyanide pill down my throat.

so far today i’ve read some origin of species (for class) and some love in the time of cholera (for fun). i’ll tell you one sure is more fun to read (guess which), but sure doesn’t allow you to learn quite as much useless information about pigeons as the other (guess again).

quick question: i really want to quit my current job to maybe look for another one or just to have more time during the day to read for school and do other things. i was only there for an hour and a half today, and time was going by slow as molasses. my business class went faster than that (which is a huge statement), and i even had headphones playing good music while i was at work. but to the question — is it wrong of me to not quit yet because i want to get the phone number of a certain coworker i haven’t seen yet since the semester began? does that make me creepy?

if that doesn’t, do you think it would if i got some of those white contact lenses? or maybe the black ones, like that neat guy in limp bizkit? boy, he sure is neat. so, should i get ’em? so i could be creepy and neat? whadda ya think?

yeah, i don’t really know why i said that either. i’m a fool.

song link didn’t work/wasn’t up for a bit because blogger was down. fixed it just now.

probably the most exciting musical news of the year 2000, for me, was that the impossibles were reforming, putting out a new album, and going on a reunion tour. i know for a fact that the show i caught that summer at fitzgerald’s in houston — with a capacity crowd of texan kids who adored this band, knew every word and were as excited as i was, plus great opening sets from the rx bandits and slow gherkin — was the best concert that year, hands down, and would for sure be in the running for best show i’ve ever seen. ever since then they’ve been my favorite live band because they are rock when they’re onstage, and they make you feel the rock when you see them up there.

because of this, i was shocked and saddened when i read that they are breaking up again. this time i feel like it’ll be for good. not only will i miss them (at least i caught them twice back in september and videotaped one of the two shows), but it’s making me feel old that now one more of my favorite bands is defunct. not that i hold it against them personally for moving on — you’ve gotta do what you’ve gotta do — but i’m still allowed to mourn the loss.

i wish them luck in whatever they pursue next, and as a salute i’ve got some of the recent and maybe best impossibles songs up there for song of the week. first is disintegration (is the best album, ever) off their recent and final ep. as a bonus are two more good ones. honestly though, out of the few dozen songs they’ve put out, i think they’re all great except maybe two or three, tops. it’s possible i just don’t know what i’m talking about, but i encourage checking out all of their stuff.

so much behind the scenes action! i’ve been watching special features all day and i still can’t get through it all. the phantom menace is making me its bitch.

classes were a-okay, but first days don’t usually tell you much. once the edumacation starts, then we’ll have a verdict. at least i got to see lots of girls on campus looking pretty sweet . . . since it’s about 70 degrees here in the afternoon, everyone’s still showing abs and shoulders and wearing tanktops and all that. it’s nutso. i feel like i’m outside of reality–it’s the january, for christ’s sake!

(yes, the word “the” is there intentionally. extraneous words=humor.)