June 12, 2005

• I’m in a nostalgic mood. It’s not that there’s something in the days of yore that I’m longing for, it’s just images, thoughts and feelings from my past that are all coming together in a sweet savoir haunting me; more correctly, teasing and tantalizing me. (As a side thought, if you have a list of three or more elements and a coordinating conjunction, does the last element before the CC get a coma? I’m much too hyped on using a colons and semicolons.) I’ve got music that I haven’t heard in years mixing with tunes I recently became acquainted with. The passion that I originally had for Meet Joe Black mysteriously came back to me today. Once again I found that Martin Brest knew what he was doing and should be commended for making such a fine film. Look at all of the subtle gestures or, for that matter, look at the camera work. It was just a wonderful, wonderful film, and the score was excellent. For some reason, I also have The Manchurian Candidate playing in my head.
  
  Oh well…it’s update time. For my faithful readership (yes you, that one special person that dumped me like she did–the shame!) “you may receive information from what follows that may be valuable to you or not. Either way, thanks.”
  
  First, as you all know, I gots me a new job. I’m supposed to be doing HVAC, but because I don’t have the tools yet, I cut angle iron Thursday and Friday. Wednesday was supposed to be my first day, but they didn’t have a place to put me, so I offered to go home. I promptly went to Verizon and spent way too much money there on upgrades for the phone. (Long lasting battery, a charge-while-you-talk charger, etc) Now when I call, I can talk even longer.
  
  John, Beth and I went to go see Mr. and Mrs. Smith. It was awesome! Highly recommended for a light-hearted comedy. As a side note, Beth thinks I’m freaky. What a joke! (Thanks for the laugh…and the paranoia.) Speaking of Mr. and Mrs. Smith, I have a tale to tell you.
  
  Ok, so everyone knows that I work at the theater, right? (Well if you didn’t, now you do.) So I went in Thursday night to get tickets for the three of us and saw the manager that takes care of the schedule. She asked me if I had decided what I wanted to do as far as quitting, full-time or just weekends. I told her (and I quote) “I’m thinking just weekends unless it becomes too much or someone pisses me off.” She goes, “speaking of that, I need to talk to you.” and I go “What’d I do now?” and she goes something like, “there was a girl (one of the concession workers) here this afternoon looking for you, and they were upset that you weren’t here.” This story must stop so I can fill you in on the details.
  
  Tuesday was my last weekday at the theater and one of the new girls was being obnoxious. I don’t know if she likes me or not, but she’s rather outgoing and touchy-feely. Well, I had been back and forth about whether or not she likes me. I didn’t/don’t personally care, but hey, it beats sitting around the apartment and doing nothing. She also had this attitude about her the first couple of days that she worked…I mean she was Bitchy. (note the capital B). I decided that it would be best if I were just as cold back to her. The funny thing was, it seemed to be the case that we would work together on days when either someone annoyed me or I was having to go wide open, as in the case of when stock came.
  
  Just a little commercial/FYI, when I get hot (i.e. sweating from working too hard too fast) I get irritable. I just want to get the job done and go home. Being an insomniac doesn’t help matters any, neither does having low blood sugar.
  
  Well, I don’t know what made me do it. Maybe it was Beth telling me to get off my keister, loosen up and live a little. So to amuse myself, I gave this girl (let’s call her Tiger) my business card and asked her if she wanted to go somewhere Thursday night since we both had off. Well, she said, “sure why not?” and we kinda left things at that. Granted, I wasn’t exactly asking for an official date, I was just having fun and was thinking it would be a bonus to have someone to go eat with of the opposite gender. (By the way, if you’ve read through the bullshit by now and have gotten the subliminal message, know this, it was just a passing thought.)
  
  Later that afternoon, I got a hankerin’ for Fettuccini Alfredo. I knew we both got off at the same time on Tuesday, so I asked her if she’d ever had any. Tiger said no. I asked her if she’d like to go to Macaroni Grill that evening and try some. She said she’d have to see, but that she’d call…Well, let’s suffice it to say that she didn’t call (I was expecting that). What I didn’t expect was for this mysterious concession girl looking for me on Thursday afternoon after I had told Tiger that I got off at three. She must have missed the part about me getting a job elsewhere…that is of course if Tiger is the girl in question. I’m not sure, but that’s what I was thinking, cause I don’t know who’d be looking for me and be upset over the fact that I wasn’t there. Back to the office story now.
  
  The other thing that the manager said was that there had been some complaints go through the grapevine that I had been asking out “all the girls” and that it was making them uncomfortable and that it needed to quit because it was a terminable offense. Now, you must understand that this thought thoroughly amused me, especially considering the fact that I am socially clumsy and hence anti-social. The “asking all the girls out” business had come directly from the GM, but for some weird reason, she was having the hiring manager do her bidding. Ha! What a conversation I’d had with her. It would have been less amusing, but I assure you it would have resulted in a massive storm system developing over Huntsville, the likes of which no man has seen before.
  
  When the hiring manager uttered the above dialogue, I was a bit taken back in thoughts of someone looking for me and them being upset that I wasn’t there. However, what I “heard” when she said that was “Someone was angry at you because you weren’t here.” BIG MISTAKE!!! I flew off the handle and heatedly (I don’t think I yelled, but so be it if I did.) said, “I don’t know why someone would be mad at me for not being here. They know how to contact me and I’ve publicized getting the new job for quite a while now. I’m chasing the dollar, working construction during the week and here on the weekends. Everyone knew that.” Once I realized what I did, I attempted to apologize, but all I could do was attempt to justify my irreverent behavior. Finally, I just looked at my manager and said, “I’m just digging a deeper hole, aren’t I?” She looked at me and went, “uh-huh.” I got up and left.
  
  When I got home, I called Beth and told her what happened. She said, “You asshole! That meant that whoever was looking for you was disappointed that they didn’t get to see you, not angry at your for not being there.” Thanks Beth for you’re encouragement. My only fear was that the hiring manager relayed everything I said back to whomever it was (probably Tiger, but we’ll have to see), so…
  
  There’s follow-up to this never ending tale. I worked last night and went back and gave a sincere apology (read as sincere an apology as I am capable of) to my manager, explaining the miscommunication. She said something along the lines of she had thought about the situation too, and realized that she didn’t give the most tactful presentation possible. You can’t help but be amused by it all.
  
  Blue Portal looks like it’s about to get a shot in the arm. There are two real projects that need a little time to mature, but might become productions before the end of the year, if not the end of the summer. I still have a lot of legwork to do via email for Blue Portal, but I do believe that I will get it done this week. Lots and lots of stuff going on, and I found out about it all on Saturday.
  
  So I finally got a decent job. We’ll see how long I hold it down. Sometimes life is too amusing, jus like you.
  
  P.S. What was that whole crack you made about maybe going into programming? And how are you liking Hunt for Zero Point?
  

  
  

  UPDATE: So Tiger was a work tonight and I asked her if she came up on Thursday and she said no. But there’s a good possibility that she’s lying, which wouldn’t be surprising.

  
  

  Oh, to those of you who are still thinking up an answer to the dilemma of whether or not to get a girl or save the money, I just wanted to let the world know how much of an idiot I really am because I already had the answer: make the movie already! Indifference is great.

  • 3:19 pm
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