hypnotist collector

i'll be starting at chase next week. it looks like it will be first shift. i just realised that it might be wiser to take 2nd shift and work at beans and bagels at the same time- their shift ends at around 3pm anyway. that way i would be able to pay off my debts and hopefully save some serious money before christmas and then when i get back in town i'll still have a job. i actually do want to work at beans and bagels, even though it means that i'll be seeing the two boss ladies i detest so pretty much every day.
how incredibly fortunate that i decided not to call in to smart today. i wanted to just stay home and get my screenprinting started, and also i'd be able to do the dishes and the laundry, which i need to do. i'm at metropolis right now. in celebration of my new job that starts next week i figured it wouldn't be totally out of line to celebrate a little early. i also have to go to the hardware store and pick up one last (hopefully) ingredient for the printing which is to transpire. awersome! i hope that it will work. i'm a bit nervous i must confess. i really really hope that they will be done in time for the radish patch show. the only other show we have booked at the moment is at permanent records on nov. 3rd. no one else is biting at all. at. all. annoying. a bit of a shame as well as hannah can't work with anymore. brendan can't either for some reason. hannah appears to be going through a really rough time- she just got back from japan and said that she's in therapy right now. she said that she's taking a break from playing music for a while. this is a shame because i actually did like playing music with her- she played things exactly as i asked her to to the letter and very beautifully, i was really looking forward to having her play on more of the record. there are still about 8 cello/string parts left to be done for 'down to sleep.' the vocals are almost done (there are two left and both are just by me) and other than vocals and such there really isn't much that can be finished before i need to buy more equipment to achieve the level of quality i am after. i guess with the new job and whatnot buying some new microphones can be done so that we can get the drums recorded properly. i really wanted to go after some good drum sounds. the ones we've gotten so far with only two mics i'm very happy with, but a lot of that is simply to do with how stefanie plays and the sheer starkness of the beats- i.e. only mic is necessary to record the table and if there's no snare involved things are much easier.
so at the show this thursday it's just going to be stefanie and i playing acoustic with no p.a. i was thinking that we'd also attempt to play a few from 'blue-eyed.' i played 'song to the stars' in the room last week and i definitely want to fit that in there- it'd be perfect for the occassion and it hasn't been played for a long time now- kind of sad to leave a great song like that on the shelf...
i think that will be all for today.

hippie motherfucker

our hippie motherfucker neighbor is having another one of his little parties. it'd be really nice if he wouldn't have them late at night on a week night- just another flag to fly saying 'i have no job and i am a spoiled little college brat whose mommy and daddy are paying my rent and my bills.' on top of that it sounds like there are a million loud motherfuckers being super loud outside, naturally right under our window, and it's getting kind of annoying. i hope it doesn't wake stefanie up. hippie motherfucker's got music blaring in his apartment that i can hear from in here and i can hear the annoying laughs filing into his apartment. i really, really don't like hippie motherfucker, as i'm sure you can tell from this post.
i had three hours of sleep last night and i'm totally exhausted. if those dumb motherfuckers laughing really loud don't shut the fuck up heads will fucking roll. hippie motherfucker heads to be exact.

i can't sleep...

yeah, i can't sleep.
it's that silly reunion thing again. it digs up a lot of skeletons that are in the closet and that's just not fun, y'know?
i dunno...
i was doing just fine. fuck. i think i'm just nervous because i sent kyle land a message through myspace because i wanted to friend him and see how he's doing and whatnot and now i'm worried that people are going to find me and i don't really want any of those high school people to find me. i don't know why that is- high school wasn't particularly torturous for me- only a few people were really fucking mean to me, i never got beaten up or anything like that- there was a rumor for years and years that i was gay, but that never bothered me very much. even when i see it now i just think it's funny and ridiculous. i even came to the conclusion recently that i think that my parents thought i was gay because of debbie welch. i'm not sure what facilitated it or anything, but somehow people got it into their heads that i must be gay. i think it was because i was weird and gay is easier to understand than weird maybe? or maybe it's a reason for weird. it's just weird because i remember my parents being so angry about something all the time and i never understood why and they'd never talk to me about it- my dad especially. it's all stuff that could've been avoided if my dad had just sat down with me and asked me point blank and i could've said 'no, i don't know where people get that idea from.' end of discussion.
i dunno...
even in the thick of everything that happened i was always so detached from it that i usually just didn't care or was blissfully unaware of things like that because i didn't spend any time caring about whether or not people thought bad things about me. it's similar to what i call the 5th grade mentality. i say 5th grade mentality because when i look back on my life i realise that when i was in 5th grade was when i was probably as close to self-actualized as i'd ever be. people called me a nerd to my face all the time and i just didn't give a fuck. i'd usually just say 'well, if not being a nerd means that i have to be friends with jerks like you i'd rather be a nerd. fuck you.' seriously- i'd say shit like that to my classmates when they'd insult me. i never got upset about that stuff because i knew it didn't matter. it's a mentality that i still aspire to. i might be close right now, but a few things seem to have derailed it.
what's more the thought of facing all of those people is just terrifying and i don't know why. i don't understand why it's necessary to meet up and see where everyone is. me- married, jobless, balding, pumping all of my money into my music releases that no one gives two shits about let alone buys and driving a huge white hippie van. i'm doing what i want to be doing, but honestly i'm the reason people like to go to reunions and feel better about themselves. the problem is that i was nice to people in high school. well, for the most part. my hands aren't necessarily clean on that bit. i just don't want to agonize about that stuff because try as i might i do if it enters my mind. same with the sad stuff that happened to me (usually this just involves being chicken shit and stupid and not realising that it's better to regret something you have done than something you haven't). i felt like i was finally getting to a place in life where that stuff wasn't bugging me anymore and now this stupid reunion comes up and i start hearing this about this person and that about that person and start running into random people from high school on the street here in chicago... why? what for? i went to what was supposedly one of the best public schools in the entire country, went to college, got a degree and for the love of god i still can't figure out why or what it did for me to make my life any better. college was a collosal waste of time and money. the only good thing about it was that i met stefanie in college, but considering the synchronicity of the two of us i wouldn't be surprised if we would've met later on anyway.
and then there's kara. i'm going to be very frank right now, so if you haven't got the stomach to read this then you'd better stop because i have to unburden myself here. there's a survey down a little further and on it is a question that says something to the effect of 'have you ever had your heart broken?' and i answered that i didn't think i had but i realise that i was wrong to answer that way. yeah, being a dumbass and letting her get away was enough to break my heart. that's why i had insomnia for about six months solid. of course seeing her didn't really do anything to make that any better- that just broke it even more because i really saw what that whole 'it's better to regret something you have done than to regret something you haven't.' i would prefer it if someone else had broken it deliberately instead of me doing it to myself without even knowing it. and the thing is is that i wrote that song (do you really have to ask?) so that i wouldn't feel bad about it anymore and it seemed to have worked. it was the kind of song i've always wanted to write- just kind of came out almost by accident, said everything i wanted to say (which was basically 'i'm sorry') and did it in a way that i was comfortable with. it's just that things like this come along and it just fucking sucks, you know? you get over something and get on with your life, but that isn't how things work evidently- you'll hear something that'll bring all of the feelings bubbling to the surface. naturally i have nothing better to do with my time right now than think about it. naturally the only weekend i can come home when everyone i want to see will be in town is the weekend of the fucking reunion, when the town will be crawling with people from high school and everyone in the mood to get together and rehash old times. fuck, i still feel like i'm in high school sometimes and it makes me pretty upset... it isn't real fun to think about how stupid you were back then... that's basically all i see when i look back- i was just a stupid kid. i'm still a stupid kid.
goddamn the internet....

autumn you are welcome here

at last. it's finally come. i'd hoped it would and now it has. we had to put the comforter back on the bed because it was too cold at night. hallelujah! comforting, eh? sorry, i had to...
*ahem*
so far employment prospects are not too bad. i have an interview at that place in deerfield on monday- the call center one that involves a lot of data entry and involves calls that aren't sales calls. i'm just hoping it isn't logging complaints or something like that. that would kind of suck. it's a month of paid training anyway, which to me means if i don't like it i can leave. if that doesn't work out i talked to susan at beans and bagels (the coffee shop we frequented before going to lorna's every morning) and she said that if i haven't found anything by then that she'd like to hire me there after oct. 1st. business is supposed to pick back up there around then because of the construction on the montrose brown line stop (which beans and bagels is directly underneath). i have coffee shop experience and i know what i'd be in for there. this has at least helped to rid me of sleepless nights (of which there've been a few) for both me and stefanie.
i have $1 and assorted change in my pocket- this is the last of my cash. i have money in my bank account but i am holding onto it so that i can pay the minimum amount on my credit card. after that there will really be nothing. yipes.
i've been trying to keep myself busy. tomorrow i'm helping jay move stuff to the new bird machine space in skokie. heavy lifting and van driving woohoo! he is going to give me gas and beer i've heard. there was talk of food and money as well.
the ep is coming along nicely. i ordered the lightbulbs that i needed to start printing the tracklisting. it's coming down to the wire and i do hope that they're ready in time for the show at the radish patch a week from tomorrow. sadly, it looks like i can't get hannah or brendan to lend some stringed instrument help for this show. quite a shame as james will be there and i'm going to ask him to record it on video for us so we can have a copy and ideally finally have some decent acoustic show recordings with strings (which are a bit elusive). there are the two from cal's bar, but stefanie's vocals are practically inaudible in both of them and the cello is only moderately audible.
we also just got a show at permanent records on oct. 27th. looking forward to that. yes, indeedy.
erm... that's about it i think. i should probably get to bed since i have to be up early tomorrow.

today's lesson is...

... to work keep working on the record. always. this will be essential to getting through the unemployment period while retaining my sanity.
today i had a meltdown after going in to chase to fill out a ton of paperwork and get my fingerprints. said paperwork included extensive background checks- full residence and employment records for the last 7 years with every second accounted for. i got a few little things wrong but it doesn't really matter since none of the apartments i've lived in for the last seven years have had any utilities in my name. i ran a background check on myself once and nothing came up at all. there was also a handwriting analysis section that involved writing in cursive which i haven't done since i was about 10.
so tomorrow i'm going to try and get some work done on the record and hopefully more info will come out about this other job that the temp agency is looking into for me- it's a call center/data entry type position. it involves phone work but it also has a month of paid training. you can't really go wrong in trying that out. it is all the way out in deerfield, though- but it's metra accessible. we shall see.
i'm going to get back to dvd extras and such like. i'm wearing a lucky charms hat that my dad gave me from his trip to seattle. i saw someone wearing the same lucky charms hat on the train today...

anothah!

10 years ago

1.) How old were you?: 18

2.) Where did you go to school? i had been accepted to columbia college here in chicago but the semester hadn't started yet.

3) Where did you work?: i might've already quit all three of my summer jobs. that's right- i had three jobs that summer- i worked all three for about two weeks. one- busser at leawood country club, two- some kind of errand boy for my dad's company, three- desk clerk at oxford cleaners- the deadest dry-cleaning store i've ever seen.

4) Where did you live?: old leawood, kansas. for you out of towner's it's an affluent suburb south of kansas city.

5.) Where did you hang out? mike's house. before that it was elizabeth's house a lot too but she'd gone away to school by then.

6.) Did you wear glasses? yes.

7.) Who was your best friend?: mike

8.) How many tattoos did you have?: none

9.) How many piercings did you have? none

10) What car did you drive?: mazda mx-6 (named 'darcy')

11.) Had you been to a real party? yes.

12.) Had You had your heart broken? in a high school way several times. in a real 'my life is over' kind of way- never.


-----------5 years ago-----------

1.) How old were you?: 23

2.) Where did you go to school?: i didn't go to school anymore.

3.) Where did you work?: hee hee- i worked at the oregon zoo.

4.) Where did you live? a tiny, overpriced studio apartment in southeast portland.

5.) Where did you hang out? the pied cow, kennedy school, jackpot records, everyday music, powell's, etc.

6.) Did you wear glasses? yes. always.

7.) Who was your best friend?: mike.

9.) How many tattoos did you have?: none

10.) How many piercings did you have? none

11.) What car did you drive?: a green 1999 honda civic (named 'lem')

12.) Taken/Single/Married/Divorced?: quite taken.

----------------2 years ago-------------------

1.) How old were you?: 26

2.) Where did you go to school?: nowhere.

3.) Where did you work?: i think i might've just gotten the data entry job at CEDA

4.) Where did you live?: a tiny, overpriced studio above the congress theater in logan square.

5.) Where did you hang out?: alliance bakery, myopic books, quimby's, reckless records, etc.

6.) Did you wear glasses?: yes. always.

7.) Who was your best friend?: mike.

8.) How many tattoos did you have?: none

9.) How many piercings did you have? none

10.) What car did you drive?: a white 1995 chevy g-20 child-molester van complete with hippie stickers (named 'big momma')

11.) Had your heart broken?: not in a long time.

12.) Were you Single/Taken/Married/Divorce?: just married.

--------------------Today--------------------

1.) How old are you?: 28

2.) Where do you go to school? nowhere

3.) Where do you work? i might have just landed a job at jp morgan chase- i think i'll know by tomorrow...

4.) Where do you live.? a roomy, cheap 1-bedroom apartment in edgewater.

5.) Do you wear glasses? yes. of course. moron.

6.) Where do you hang out? metropolis coffeehouse, beans and bagels. chipotle, a bevvy of record stores and the like...

7.) Do you talk to your old friends? mike and billy are still my best friends. i talked to elizabeth a fair amount up until about a year ago. i talk to dmitriy a little. we see claire every now and again.

8). Who are your best friends/close friends? mike and billy

9.) How many tattoos?: none.

10.) What kind of car do you have? same old big momma...

12.) Are you Single/Taken/Married/Divorce? still married.

why do i do these again?

interview pt 2

my interview that was supposed to be yesterday was cancelled and rescheduled for this afternoon. i was real nervous yesterday. today i'm a bit less worried. i got my application all filled out yesterday in anticipation for the interview. now i'm not so worried since it's already done.
more word later.