two.points.collapsing

the summer reading rampage continues in the wake of infinite jest, and now i’m on to the corrections by jonathan franzen, which is turning out to be really great. i’m very into it at only a quarter of the way through, so i will deliver a fuller opinion in a week or so. i had just finished nick hornby’s how to be good before i started this one, so i can deliver a complete verdict on that one.

the thing is, i’m a fan of nick hornby, and i’d say that high fidelity and about a boy, movie adapted as they may be, are two of the better books i’ve read in the past few years. they were just so insightful and pulled me right into the heart and mind of those characters. i was right there with them and i felt the heartbreak.

with how to be good though, even though i’m a fan, i can admit i was let down. it wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t on a level with the others. i just didn’t feel myself really caring about the principle characters, and it wasn’t nearly as funny, and although it raised some good points and questions, i didn’t feel the same moments of dawning agreement with his quirky observations. so since all that was why i liked the other two so very much, well, this just didn’t do much for me. i’ll definitely give him another chance though, whenever that is.

the next problem, of course, is having extra money around to buy more books to read. after this one, i think there’s only one unread one sitting around the bookshelves. taking a month and a half to read one 1000 page volume will get you used to not needing a book budget for a few weeks, but i’d say in about 15 days i’m gonna be bone dry for reading if i don’t scrape something up soon. not that i don’t have a long list of things i’d like to read, it’s more about buying those and still having money left to live my rock and roll lifestyle. it’s times like this when i wish i had stock so i could hope it went up.

[now hearing this: burning airlines – mission: control!. and the thing is, it’s so good i can’t really talk about it.]

90 minutes into monday morning and already annoyed.

for one thing, i was blatanty cut off on the way to work today. now normally i don’t mind all too much when someone speeds up the right turn lane and then rudely and hastily merges back into the forward-moving traffice, and i just sort of yell playfully to myself and let them get on their way. i’m not really much of a road-rage, speed-demon, mess-with-me-and-i’ll-tailgate-you kind of people. but this one got on my nerves not just because it was so blatant and inconsiderate, but because the offender had a huge ugly car with two flailing ugly laker flags, one flapping from each side of his car. now some of you who read last summer and especially last fall might know how stupid and annoying those things are to me and will understand how that would sharpen my frustration. if you don’t, well let’s just say cars with flags of any kind flying from their windows just make me really angry. life is not a parade, people. i cannot stress that enough.

then, once i come to work, the first person i see asks me how i am. my reply? something utterly daft about how, well, you know, it’s monday. oh jesus. as soon as the words left my mouth, i was inwardly frightened by myself. if i turn into one of those office people who can only ever talk about how it’s monday, or how i can’t wait until friday, or what i did last weekend or am doing this weekend (i am excluded from talking about the weather all the time, since i live in LA where the weather never changes), i’m fairly certain i will have to find a different place to work higher off the ground so that i’m more sure to die when i leap from the office windows.

i know studying business and marketing wasn’t the best way to avoid the infamous office-life, but if i can’t maintain my personality somehow in the face of this collossal foe, then rest assured there will be drastic life-changes made. that’s what i keep telling myself anyway.

[now hearing this: nothing, again, because i’m answering phones and running around and i only have headphones and not real speakers.]

went out with some pals to catch the bourne identity this afternoon. as someone who doesn’t usually run out to see many action/thriller movies, i’m not surprised that i can only really give it a rating of ‘very okay’. not as in ‘very okay’ equalling a step above just plain ‘okay’; more like it was very definitely and entirely just plain okay. the kind of movie you walk out of thinking, “hey that wasn’t a bad way to spend my sunday afternoon”, but when someone asks you in a year if you want to watch their rental copy with them, you opt instead to read a book or magazine and only half-watch the movie, because frankly it’s just not that exciting on its own.

of course, in relation to something like that ya-ya movie about old crazy women, it’s the most wonderful film i could have hoped to be privileged to view. jesus, who would ever want to go see that movie? i’m pretty sure ads for that movie evoke more scoffing from me than even eddie griffin movies are capable of doing.

alright, that’s going a little far. i take it back. still, though…ya-ya? that’s awful.

oh, i saw this movie called cq last week too, which was also pretty decent. that one was ‘very okay’ as in just a step above okay, though. or maybe a half step. fun to watch, but again, i’d opt for reading over re-watching that one too. hopefully i’ll have better luck in the future (i still need to catch insomnia and plan to go out for minority report and the dangerous lives of altar boys in the next few weeks, so we’ll see).

[now hearing this: jimmy eat world – “goodbye sky harbor”; the best song ever over ten minutes, that i can think of.]

as i’ve grown older, i’ve found that saturdays have become increasingly precious and important to maintaining a positive psychological state. without the promise of an ever-nearing saturday, working a 40 hour week would be pretty unbearable — at least in the position i’m in this summer. (my dream, as far as careers go, is to have a job that if i don’t actively enjoy going to, i at least feel like time goes by quickly while i am working; because there’s nothing worse than having to watch the clock tick by. it’s one thing to do in a two-hour university class, which is bad enough, but doing it with a 9-hour day is a real nightmare). having the promise of pure leisure-time is vital to surviving what can essentially be seen as pure servitude. but this i’m sure isn’t news to anyone who’s worked a job that’s far less for themselves as it is for ‘the boss’.

and all the same, what do i do with my day of pure leisure? i sleep until 11 (probably the best part of saturday), i go to the bank to get quarters (for laundry), i go to the store to buy bread (i’m essentially out of food and have to make due until payday), i come home and make a mixtape and do laundry, read a little, and suddenly it’s getting close to 9pm and my precious saturday is slipping through my fingers. this is the day i look forward to all week?

without question. because i got to pick when and how and if i did any of these dumb little things, i sort of enjoy all of it on a level that work can’t really touch. unless you’re the boss, i guess, in which i certainly envy you. i’ve often pictured myself as a writer, not only because it would be incredibly cool and rewarding, but because there are no “hours”. you write when you want to write, as long as you get it done, and you sit on the couch and watch dvds or go to the movies or the beach or whatever else when you want to do those things instead of writing. if only every other occupation could work that way, i think that more people in the world would be much happier. but i bet a lot of lazy people would just stop working altogether then and nothing would get done, so thanks a lot you lazy sacks, for making my dreamworld impossible.

no, sunday isn’t as good because sunday holds with it the i-have-work-tomorrow dread. and church, if you’re extra unlucky.

[now hearing this: the flaming lips – “slow nerve action” from transmissions from the satellite heart. this cd is great, this band is amazing, and the song of the week i downloaded from cory at blackyellowblack from their upcoming album is unbelievable. boy am i looking forward to that one (yoshimi battles the pink robots if you didn’t know already).]

part of my job is to help maintain the database of contacts for companies/people to whom we mail materials or email updates.

i just found out there is not only one, there are several people whose last name is “rosenzweig”.

that just blows my mind.

[now hearing this: jawbox – (self-titled). you need good music to help pass time spent database-updating. luckily this cd is so unbelievably choice.]

i don’t think most people who maintain any kind of journal, online or otherwise, would say that just because you didn’t get around to writing for a chunk of time, that there was ‘something wrong’. actually more often the opposite is probably true; when you’re just having a grand old time and filling every day with activity, why would you kill all the momentum by stopping yourself to say, “oh wait, i’d better write all this down.”

i’m not suggesting that my life has just been brimming with adventure and excitement this week, but i have been keeping occupied enough to where my normal sit-and-stare-at-laptop time is pretty reduced. i think a similar thing happened last summer too, because when you sit at a computer all day at work, doing so in leisure time becomes somewhat less appealing, predictably. and i try not to enter blog-world at work because i’m pretty sure once i do, it’ll only be downhill from there. yes, i am trying to be a good worker/intern, at least until further into the summer.

i left a few minutes early from home today though since i needed to get gas, and that never takes as long as i think it’s going to, so every time i go to get gas i end up getting to work about 15 minutes early. hence, i can write a little here without any guilt, since technically i’m not even supposed to be here yet.

and maybe i will grow weaker as today wears on and i don’t get any engrossing projects to work on, and i’ll end up writing again; because my theory on summer internships at this point is that it’s okay not to like them, or want to go to them, without feeling that “this isn’t the career field for me”, because who in their right mind would want to work at an intern-level position all their life? i’m absolutely certain my job would be more interesting at this very same office, if i were a level or two higher up the totem pole and not given the “make-the-intern-do-it” tasks that higher-ups don’t want and naturally don’t really have time for. i don’t think it’s naive or even stupidly optimistic to think that i’m supposed to hate my job right now, at least to a degree, and that i’m just putting time in toward a more fulfilling role in future offices, whatever those may be.

i guess it’s a strange sort of optimism i have, that i’m hoping my optimism about future job satisfaction isn’t optimism at all. i’m optimistic that my optimism is actually realism, i might say.

anyway, that’s enough for now. thank you for dropping by.

[now hearing this: a very quiet office, 9.5 hours until i’m back at home.]

playing video games all afternoon made me hungry, so josh and i hit up in-n-out, then coldstone (coldstone combo #3: sweet cream w/ brownie and cherries. apparently this is called “black forest”, but i didn’t see the little suggested-flavor placard on the counter until i asked for that and the server pointed it out to me, so i maintain that i am some kind of ice cream prodigy).

after ice cream we jetted over to best buy where i had been told i could get a good price on the mr. show dvd set, but which failed to even have any copies in stock. and just when i was tempted to return, if even for a day, back to the world of retail shopping. but oh no, back to the pits of e-commerce i go!

what am i talking about, pits. deepdiscountdvd is the best thing ever. and they even have a separate site just launched for really cheap cd’s too. guess what that one’s called? you’re right. plus the shipping is always free. so best buy can kiss my entertainment-craving ass goodbye, that’s for sure. if the one time i come to your store looking for something, you don’t have it — you just get cut off. like that.

i still love amoeba though. seeing about a boy again the other night made me feel bad that a friend’s surprise birthday party had to be the same night badly drawn boy was playing a free in-store there. i mean, she would have been surprised had the party been the next night too, right? sigh…

[now hearing this: joshjazz. someday i will start finding out what all these cds my roommate plays actually are, you know. someday. but for now, i shall simply call it joshjazz.]

some of the most painful minutes of my recent life have been sitting through a band called “ultrababyfat” which quite unfortunately preceded david cross’s standup performance. the thing is, the two singers/guitarists were girls, which, i’m sad to say, i pretty much never like. there are exceptions of course, but really, in all honesty, girl bands suck a lot. seriously, a lot. and girl bands like “ultrababyfat” sure don’t make me quick to give girl bands another chance, as much as they make me wish i could strike myself temporarily deaf by eating my napkin or some such convenient method. the just couldn’t sing, and their songs all sounded the same, which was boring and annoying, and their lyrics were stupid, and to top it off they weren’t even hot.

jesus they sucked ass.

however…it was well worth enduring the pain, because thursday night i sat in a room and laughed harder and more often than at anything i can remember ever seeing or hearing in my life; while a man i am now pretty sure is one of the best comedians alive ranted for nearly two whole hours to my utter delight. a 15 dollar ticket plus a 15 dollar dinner was a paltry sum, it was so pricelessly hilarious and grand. his two topics of choice: ignorant/southern people and organized religion, with some lovely george bush bashing thown in and post-9-11 humor as well. oh my god, i don’t know if it’s possible that anyone reading this will live in a town he has yet to visit on tour, but if so do not miss this opportunity.

he actually referred to the bible as “some D&D shit.” oh christ i had a great time.

the only snag not involving a shitty girl-band opener was that trying to get in, i showed them my drivers license, which is from a state i will prefer not to metion, and which is oriented vertically as opposed to standard horizontal — to indicate it was an under-21 license (but which also says clearly at the top: over 21 as of 01-24-2002). the doorman did not approve of this license and asked if i had anything else with my birthdate on it, which caused me to think later, is there even any other form of identification that ANYONE would have with their birth date on it? am i supposed to show him my passport which i keep around my neck on a string at all times? what the hell.

but anyway, i said no, and he told me to wait a minute, and came back with a book of “id’s across the nation” or something, with pictures of what each state’s ids look like. and, since there wasn’t a picture of a vertical id for my specific state-of-license, he took my completely valid license and put it in his pocket, and told me to come get it back after the show as he put big black magic-marker X’s on both my hands to show everyone i was a minor and would be playing straightedge for the night. i mean shit, i didn’t even want to drink, but what the hell would i get a fake id that was vertical if it wasn’t a real fucking license? jesus, that was frustrating. and it’s just so hard to argue with a beefy guy with a shaved head in a black polo shirt that says “security” on his sizeable left pectoral. at least i got it back on the way out so i could, you know, drive, and prove to non-retarded establishments that i am who i say i am, but goddamn, that was so annoying and unnecessary. i hate that state.

[now hearing this: i think there’s an ice cream truck outside somewhere.]

this was a real conversation i had at work. it was wednesday afternoon, and coworker was going over some stuff in a database about recent movie releases.

coworker: [aloud but not really directed at anyone, from his cubicle] did that movie the importance of being earnest ever come out?

brian: [confidently] yeah. it’s still out right now, i think.

coworker: [surprised at my quick response] how’d you know that?

brian: because i was thinking about going to see it a week or two ago but i ended up doing something else.

coworker: really? you were going to go see this? why?

brian: well i’m a big oscar wilde fan . . .

coworker: oh; is he in it or something?

yeah, that really happened. after i pointed out a few seconds later that he had made a mistake and oscar wilde was the playwright, dead for over a century now, not an actor (and a second coworker had a quick chuckle at his expense, being shown up by the intern, me), he said, something like, “yeah, i know, i was joking, i know who oscar wilde is,” but i don’t know if i believe him. he’s a real standup guy, this coworker, but my gut tells me he was just saving face. maybe he does know who oscar wilde is and it just didn’t occur to him straight off, which i could believe, but i’m pretty sure by the way he said it that his initial response was not at all feigned.

and it really was pretty funny.

so tonight i went to see about a boy again and it was still a good movie — consider this my second recommendation — and tomorrow night it’s down to santa ana to see david cross live and in all his glory. and right before i made a trip out to pick up the new mr. show dvd set too. what timing. i’ll let you know how that goes.

[now hearing this: roommate’s cool piano jazz cd i wish i knew the name of, alternating with the badly drawn boy soundtrack snippets left over in my head from the movie.]

a snippet from this very good article, as found by a link on this weblog, on young boys’ tendency to read less than young girls:

“Seventy-five percent of elementary school teachers in the U.S. are women, while the percentage of female elementary school librarians is closer to 80. So it shouldn’t surprise us that many boys don’t see reading as a particularly masculine activity. We tell boys that reading is important, that reading is for everyone. We show them that reading is something mostly women do. While they’re creative and well-intentioned, I’m not convinced that the Reading is FUN-damental posters of Michael Jordan and Sammy Sosa with their noses in books are making much of a difference. Boys know why these guys are famous and how they make their money. It’s not from reading.”

it’s a good article, and makes me think i will be a very good father; at least as measured in terms of male-reading-role-model-ness. it’s sort of a weird thing to admit to thinking about, but i have to say i’ve done it before too. it’s just not a question for me, really — whenever i think about there being kids in my care someday, i think about how smart they’re going to be being around someone that loves books as much as i do.

that is, if i can carefully position myself so that there isn’t an anti-reading as anti-parental rebellion backlash of some kind, which i would see as one of my life’s great failures, were it to occur. i’ll let you know in a decade or so.

[now hearing this: hey mercedes – “let’s go blue”. i just found out yesterday that they’re coming through southern california for a stop on their tour with piebald. hot damn is that going to be good or what?]