My computer has been here and there lately. A four and a half year old laptop isn't the most reliable thing out there.

Anyway, this is what I've been busy with.

First, I'm working with other Virginia Beach/ Norfolk local young writers and artists on a multimedia presentation. The exact subject hasn't been ironed out yet, tentatively it's a meta-media presentation about the effect media over-saturation has had on our culture. The goal is to get the show on by February or March.

Secondly, this summer I'm going on the road for about 3 months. I'm going to be working on a series of articles on the homogenization of regional culture in the US, and investigating the local music scenes, and grassroots organizations. The grassroots revival of roller derby for example. The friend I'm traveling with is a derbygirl, so that one is going to be easy. We're looking at hitting the road in April or May. Once it's warm. The route we're thinking of taking is first west by the south. So Atlanta, New Orleans, Austin, Phoenix, L.A., then north, San Francisco, Portland, Seattle. We haven't figured out where the trip goes from there. I think we'll be figuring out the second half of the trip during the first half. It's a hell of a project, and it's going to take a lot more planning. First I have to get leave of absence from work. That in itself is a project.

Been a while since I've posted. I live. I live busily, but I live nonetheless. Several bad things have happened lately, I will not even go into that. Aside from the terribleness, I've been busynotbusy at work, and I've written a goddamn lot. I want to say that I'm close to getting "something" published. But I also want to say that I suck.

I put in for a new shift at work, and managed to get a 4x10 mid-shift. 10am-9pm Monday/Tuesday/Friday/Saturday, hour lunches, 3 days off a week. This starts on October 6. This is the first not terrible thing to happen around here in a while. No more of this 330-midnight Monday through Friday nonsense.



Also,

Fuck the Government. If they're going to be giving out SEVENHUNDREDGODDAMNMOTHAFUCKINBILLIONDOLLAS because the banks suck more than a craigslist prostitute. They should at least give me 0.0000001% of that money so I can pay my bills.

I just felt like I should throw that in.



for now, that is all.

damn, it's been a while since I last updated!

So the apartment on Princess Anne Rd has folded, and I'm moving again this weekend. But this is not a bad thing!

A couple weeks ago, my friend, and ex-Best Buy supervisor, Aaron was back in town on a Thursday night. I ended up going camping and river-tubing with him and his friends from Richmond that weekend, but that's another story. When I met Aaron, and his friends (my acquaintances) Judith, Satchin and Victor at Tortilla West, they asked how goes it. And I informed them that the apartment was going down in flames, etc. Victor spoke up and said that he needed a roommate and the rent is actually the same amount. Later that night I saw the place. It's bigger, nicer, has central AC, and washer/dryer IN apartment. NICE. Judith and her husband Ed live in the upstairs apartment, and Ed, Victor and I are turning the basement of the place into a so-called "Mancave". Essentially a place for small gatherings after-hours, well stocked with cold delicious beverages, in the style of a speakeasy.

Last weekend Aaron was back in town, and by then I'd already started relocating my shite from Princess Anne Rd, to Victor's a mile and change down Colonial Avenue (still in progress). We partied all weekend. Satchin brought out the girl he seeing, Amanda. And Amanda brought her little sister, Victoria. Victoria and I hit it off like gangbusters and, it seems we're dating. She's awesome, enough said.

Somehow in the span of a fortnight I have a roommate named Victor, and a girlfriend named Victoria.

That - is - a - fucking - strange - coincidence.

The Great Dismal Swamp is on fire.

Yes.

A SWAMP... is on FIRE.

And so the wind shifts and Norfolk and Chesapeake are completely fogged in with this terrible smoke (picture insert comming). The world smells like ass, and stings your eyes and makes walking anywhere a total bitch. I'm sitting at the Fair Grounds coffee shop around the corner, abusing their internet privileges (since my clandestinely appropriated wifi connection at the apartment has gone out. I don't think my pal Linksys paid his cable bill.). And I think I nearly died walking over here. And what's worse is I only smoke outside, which is now doubling up on the smoke inhalation. Everyone here is doomed to lung cancer. Doomed I say.

So... week two in my new existence as a Norfolkian? a Nor-folk? Norfolker? Doesn't matter. This place is awesome, but damn do I need roommates. This whole thing could come crashing down around my ears in a month's time and I'd be on my ass and probably back at the parent's a third time. But despite this feeling of impending doom I feel good.

I also feel good because Mom and Dad bought me a microwave for my birthday, and until tonight I've been eating pre-cooked food that had not been at all reheated. It is true that we have a bangin' gas stove, but between the current roommate and I the closest thing we have between us to a pot is a wok and a pressure cooker. Have you ever tried cooking a single serving of Chef Boyardee in a wok? I don't know if you have.

Also, last week's heatwave gave me a new appreciation for central air conditioning. Mainly because of the idea that I don't have it. A couple of morning's the only way for me to get to sleep has been to hunker down on the hardwood floor of my room lying on my winter comforter for a mattress, next to my box fan set on high with the door of the room open blowing in the slightly less stifling air from the living room where the one window AC unit on the second floor gave it everything it had.

Also, none of the outlets barring one in the attic, one in the living room and all in the kitchen have grounds. Meaning I couldn't plug my computer in anywhere but in those places until I found adapters. We also still don't have internet... shhh...

I hold in my hands the completed, signed, initialed and dated lease to an apartment, all I have to do is turn it in and it will become my apartment. Alright, so it'll be mine and roommates' apartment, but still...



Moving on the 1st.

Tonight was the first night that I worked a full-fledged West-Coast shift at Canon I.T.S

It's slow enough that many people bring books to read during the seemingly gratuitous amounts of downtime. I remembered that I had On The Road by Jack Kerouac in my car, and that I've only half-way finished reading it. So when I went on break I snatched it from my Saturn, and brought it in to read between calls. I sat at my cube for the first night of what will be countless, reading tales of a great adventurer of a generation simultaneously forgotten and overrated. One passage seemed to scream off the page and slap me in the face.


"Isn't it true that you start your life a sweet child believing in everything under your father's roof? Then comes the day of Laodiceans, when you know you are wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked, and with the visage of a gruesome grieving ghost you go shuddering through nightmare life."


Goddamn you Jack Kerouac, that did not make me feel better.

Training at work is almost finished, which means 11-7:30 will turn into 3:30-Midnight shortly.

I have tonsillitis. - it sucks. Looks like this but not so extreme. Gross.

I'm trying to start bike commuting, but I need to not have to run errands in the daytime, and it's problematic when I'm not even capable of swallowing my own spit because I've got enlarged, infectious and blistered tonsils.

I'm in the process of joining into an existing lease on an apartment in Norfolk, if it all goes through I'll be moving at the end of the month. It's a turn of the century brownstone that's been converted into two apartments, or a duplex if you will. The More on that at another date, when I have more information to report about it.

Two words: eye strain.

I've put in my two weeks notice at Best Buy... for the second time in a year.

This time I have no intentions of ever returning. Yes, you read correctly. "ever".

The other day I accepted a job offer at Canon Information Technology Services Incorporated. Which is a fancy way of saying "Canon's tech support center in Chesapeake". I'll be working full time. Monday through Friday on the west-coast shift (3:30pm-12:00am), which pays about an extra 8% due to the "shift differential". Basically any hours worked after 6pm or on Saturdays are clocked at an extra 10% pay, and then any overtime hours I work would be clocked at 165%. I'll be getting all of the health insurance benefits that I need. I'll be getting two weeks of paid vacation the first year, and more the longer I stay there. The office even has it's own cafeteria and gym.

I understand that it is quite far from glamorous. I'll be working in a cube. I'll be working a lot of shitty hours. I'll be sitting on my ass trying not to get fat. But it's a step in the right direction, it will afford me the opportunity to replace the Saturn, and my laptop, both of which are dying, and I'll be able to move out by (if not before) this summer.

My six weeks of paid training begins on April 14th. So I've got two weeks of bumming it up, and then it's time to be a regular working stiff.