Breaking News and Breaking Cars

When telling people that I’m going to grad school, I’ve found that there are different ways to tell different people.  When informing friends and piers, for example, great gusto and exuberance are used to convey joy and “see, I’m not such a fuck-up after all!” sentiment.   It’s roughly the same message to my family, except with my parents it is accompanied with underscores of, “and no, I’m not asking you for money and yes, I do have a game plan for afterwards, kind of, sort of, I love you”.

For the most part the idea of my full-time return to academia—even at 27-yrs-old and even in creative writing—is met with affirmation and congratulations.  Everyone recognizes the dreamy Hail Mary nature of my scarcely charted course, but have the good graces not to mention it.  Hey, if I do become a famous writer, do you really want to be the one to jeopardize his chances of a dedication on the first page? 

But then some people don’t care about dedications.

For the past two years I’ve lived next-door to my neighbor Ray, his wife Charlotte, his kids, grandkids, and whoever else is hanging out on their front porch.  They’re the only house on the block that isn’t confused or irritated by our house of six twenty-somethings living together.  We have a mutual understanding that money doesn’t grow on trees.

More or less, Ray.

Ray’s in his fifties, a retired auto mechanic who still works on cars for extra cash on the side.  Hard, terse, and forever splotched in motor oil, Ray’s bent legs underneath a car are a permanent fixture of the street.  We’re friendly, but I can’t say we’ve ever had a conversation that has ranged outside of cars, lawn care, or how Charlotte’s damn dog never shuts the fuck up—his words, not mine. 

Somehow, inexplicably, I’ve managed to convince Ray that I know something about cars.  Not a lot, but something more than the four and a half things that I actually do know about cars.  #1 Cars need gas. 

He’ll see me and call me over to take a look at something, a smile on his face, and I’ll stand there with an even bigger smile on my face trying to cover up the glaringly obvious fact that I don’t know jack.  It’d probably be easier, wiser, to fess up and tell Ray the truth, but I won’t do that.  Ray’s the kind of guy whose respect means something.  You figure, if you can just earn this guy’s approval then you're doing something right, and if not, you're clearly doing something wrong.

When my crappy ’97 Ford Countour broke down for the second time in four months last weekend, thus abdicating its usual spot on the street, I knew Ray knew.  The look of disapproval and disappointment on his tired face when I told him how much I had paid to patch up my car the first time was not something I could stomach again.  He had told me to junk it, but I just couldn’t give up on it.  As long as it had a chance, the option wouldn’t even register with me.  #1.5 New and/ or used cars are frick’n expensive.  So this week I starting hopping the back fence on the way to work to avoid the shaming stare I knew was waiting for me on the street.  Ah, good old avoidance. 

#2.5 Put the hood up and look at stuff when you want to pretend like you know what's going on, but  really you have no idea what's going on. 

Last weekend had been a rough weekend for me, the kind that inspires bad romantic comedies or good country music, and it had been topped off by my car breaking down way outside of St. Louis because of the same reasons it had broken down in March.  #3.5 My car has four cylinders and three of them are bad.  Cars don’t like that.  It had been a foolish idea to put money into it then and it would be straight stupid to do so now.

Ray told me the same thing with one look when he caught me checking the mail and I fessed up.  It felt like a 9-yr-old, finally forced to admit that I broken my glasses doing something that I wasn’t supposed to do, but not to worry because I didn’t even need glasses.  But I definitely need a car so I can slap finding a new one on my “To Do Before Grad School” List.

I haven’t told Ray that I’m moving yet—yea avoidance!—or that I’m doing so to study creative writing, but I'm guessing his reaction would be similar to his to my car.  This is not a practical decision, it’s barely even sane.  This choice will not put food on your table or buy you a new car.  You'll probably end up in the same situation two years later only two years older and poorer.  This choice is a luxury choice that doesn’t guarantee luxury.  It’s not smart.  So how do I explain that this decision has nothing to do with smarts?  How do I convey that I'm hoping for something more than what I have now and the risks are worth it if only to find out if it does work?  I don't think Ray would accept hopeful curiosity as a reason.  #4.5 Cars can go far.  

Jew Hulk say, "If you were doctor, you could afford nice, new car.  And you no call Jew Hulk?"

And Now for Something Different...

In lue of the teary pillow stain that I left last week—they’re like vegetables; every once in while you just have to cram some down your gullet—this week I offer something a little different, and hopefully a little entertaining.  I'm not saying it's not out there, but just go with it and enjoy?

_

The greying February sky pierced through the kitchen window as Sol Greenberg trudged in from another night’s sleep.  It was 6:30 AM on a Tuesday morning and it was time to start again. 

Sol carefully removed the bag of Folger’s Premium Roast from its Ziplocked compartment and scooped out two calculated spoonfuls of the mix, emptying it into the decrepit coffee maker.  The coffee maker shook and buzzed as it always did when Sol flipped it on, but he didn’t mind it.  In fact he was comforted by it.  The Farberware from Sears had sat on Sol’s counter for the last thirty-four years and Sol had always been a man who found relief in continuity.  Besides, it made coffee, he understood its quirks; why should he pay another $37.83 when this one was working just fine?  Sol had never understood the frivolity of today’s youth.  

He glanced over to the desk in the corner of the kitchen where we wrote letters and paid the bills.  That ugly machine was there somewhere, under his books and the pile of photographs that he had managed to get his son to mail him.

“Dad, I can send you pictures so much easier through e-mail if you’d just let me set it up for you,” Sol’s son had told him.

“What?  I should need to spend half the day on this television-typewriter set just for to see pictures of my grandchildren?” Sol had responded, “Make an old man happy and mail them to him.”

His son had persisted and stubbornly bought Sol this laptop machine, promising to help me with the e-mail, but he never came over.  He never came over for anything.  And what, now the vakacta thing just sits in on the desk gathering dust and Sol has to beg his own son—his own flesh and blood—just walk his two strong legs all the way over to the mail box to send him his photos.  How horrible Sol was to ask this of his son.  Oi vey.

Sol was just about to turn on the radio when he was violently flung into the kitchen table by the sheer force of a mammoth crash outside.  If not for the table Sol would have fallen to the floor and who knows how long he would have been down there?  It wasn’t as though visitors were just pouring through the door to see Sol every day.  A week later maybe Sol's son calls him and Sol would get to hear his son's message about how the family was doing fine and maybe they’d get a chance to drive up and see him at Passover and then they could find Sol on the kitchen floor with the rats gnawing on him!

But fortunately, the table had caught Sol and he was fine.  But what about this crash outside?  Probably those neighbor boys with their fireworks again.

“If there’s another dead cat on my lawn,” thought Sol, “if its insides are exploded all across my stoop again, I’m going to march right up to those parents and tell them how to discipline those children.  I will do this.”

Sol opened the kitchen door and stepped outside, prepared to avoid the cat insides, but was confused to find no cat guts on his stoop.  It made him even sourer to be proven wrong.  Clearly, this was some prank pulled by those neighbor boys. 

Sol suddenly noticed smoke billowing from the corner of his fence.  Aha!  Those little schmucks had set Sol’s fence on fire!  Those good-for-nothing parents would replace every board that their good-for-nothing boys had damaged! 

Sol quickly ambled over to the fence and was surprised again to find that he was wrong, and again, Sol found himself grumpier because of it.  The smoke was not from a burning fence post, but rather from a little green rock that was somehow buried deep against his fence.  The rock was actually illuminated, emitting a low green halo around it.

“What, this?  This rock is what has pushed me over and is making all this fuss now?” thought Sol, “And why should those boys dig such a hole for this and not even want to fill it in?”

These questions plagued Sol and to investigate further he gingerly knelt down to inspect the green rock.  Oi his back!  His good knee flush to the lawn, Sol plunged his hand into the hole and grasped the stone.

Instantly, upon first touch of the rock, Sol felt a pain shoot through his entire body.  But it was more than just pain.  It was also energy.  Energy as Sol had never felt before, not even as a young man.  Sol could feel it expanding through him; the more it hurt, the more power he felt.  It was incredible.

A dizziness overtook Sol and he suddenly felt as though he was watching himself from outside of his body.  His brittle, hunched frame was morphing into a muscle-bound Adonis.  And what more, he was green.  Green as that first car he had bought from Harold Murray over on 42^nd Street, you know the one.

His shirt torn asunder and his glasses flung out into the yard, Sol found himself standing ten feet high, dripping with muscles, and unable to put two thoughts together.  The immense weight of this power was crushing Sol’s brain.  Sol was not himself.  He was something else, something more. 

Yes, this much was clear to Sol, for whatever reasons, in whatever ways, Sol had become… Jew Hulk!

Jew Hulk say, "Why you no doctor yet?"

To Be Continued...

Tommy Wolfe, Meet Henry Potter

Two weekends ago I went to two of my best friends’ wedding in Ohio and then continued on to Pittsburgh to spend a few vacation days with my family and friends there.  Two weeks ago, I looked forward to this as a pleasant drive down Memory Lane, whimsically turning at Nostalgia Street, and making a gentle left onto Everything’s the same as it ever was when you left home—it’s a frick’n anchor back here—and everything you’re doing right now is fine Road.  So maybe I missed a turn?

Eight years ago at the wedding of one of my closest friends—for those keeping score, I was 19-yrs-old as was he—I recall taking him to Chuck E. Cheese’s for his bachelor party—again, we were 19, it’s all we could think of, and it was awesome—and then drinking to the point of puking at the wedding reception, but not before prank calling he and his wife in his hotel room all night long.   Classic.

"Who ordered the Chuck E. Lap Dance?"

Fast forward to 2012; No Chuck E. Cheese’s, unfortunately, and no prank call, but I did get drunk and puked at the wedding reception.  A lot.  Now granted, that wasn’t my plan and I awoke with the appropriate dosage of shame for doing so, still I couldn't help to notice that it wasn’t quite as cute or accepted as it had been eight years ago, or even five years ago, or even one year ago.  I was older and expected to act with more decorum—or at least some self-control--and others were older too and didn’t really feel like sitting next to the dude head-deep in the trashcan all night, though to their credit, they did.  Things were, older.  Things are different.

“My childhood home in Pittsburgh, now this is surely a bastion of consistency”, I had thought to myself upon my return.  Every time I come home I end up reverting to a 17-yr-old version of myself, but in an almost Harry Potter-like imperative, I’m compelled to return there every six months so I can continue on with my life outside of it.  But even my proverbial room under the steps had changed.  My parents as recent empty-nesters had continued to re-do everything.  From the kitchen to the den to even the cat—she’s a lasagna-stuffed chunkzilla now—the house had changed.

What happened to my once sweet pad?

Most of my school yard chums have since moved from Pittsburgh—it’s funny how a dying economy will do that—but even the ones who live “in town” actually live far outside of it now.  They live in nice suburbs, in houses, by themselves, or with husbands, wives, and not five other roommates.  Who said that was okay for them to do?

Sometimes I feel like the worst part is talking to them, not that I don’t enjoy talking to them.  **Disclaimer; No one take this the wrong way**  my friends talk about new marriages, evolving careers, mortgages, pre-schools while I’m talking about the same things I was talking about eight years ago.  It’s not engaging or interesting anymore to talk about the girl I kind of like, or going back to school, or what I’d like to be when I grow up.  Apparently, these are all things that I should have figured out by now.

Now, none of these are exactly new revelations to me.  I’ve been long aware of these things and have probably dedicated more than a few blog posts to them.  These are more growing revelations that evolve and splinter a little more every time I look at them.

It’s hard to say whether this homeland morphing spurs me on in my pursuits as in some bent game of catch-up, or whether it reveals how just divergent my goals have become.  Maybe both.

Wet Hot American Summer List of Things To Do: Updated

Tell boss I’m quitting—check.  Now to those other 27 things on my to-do list for starting grad school in the fall.  Groansville.  It feels like a lazy summer, it feels like it ought to be a lazy summer.  I just put in my two months notice at a job that’s essentially void of responsibility over my remaining weeks and now I should have weeks of nothing but hijinks and tom-foolery to tackle.  I certainly don’t feel like doing anything else.  But unfortunately, there’s real crap to be done--for grad school anyway--and so much of it.  So in no particular order, here’s the most recent updated version of my “Big List O’ Crap To Do”, in no particular order;

•  Find a job—still working on that one, but I've been talking to some people who know a lot of people, who know even more people in Columbia, so really, it’s just a matter of time before it all pans out.  I’m assuming that I'll take a job as a super suave and sexy bartender who solves mysteries on the side.  No sweat.

Artist's rendering

• Register and pick classes—Checkers.  This part involved a lot of phone calls to set up my student account, to set up my e-mail, to set up my graduate account so I could sign up for classes, so easy-peasy stuff.  But I got it now, I think.
• Getting my moneys—the saga continues.  I know I’m getting a full ride, but it seems like there should be papers to sign, I’s to dot, some weasel waiting to pop out of an innocent-looking box.  I even have my AmeriCorps education award waiting to clean up whatever hidden fees might/ definitely are lurking for me, but ultimately, this seems like something I'm only going to be able to address after receiving a bill.
• Finding awesome new sunglasses to instantaneously become recognized as the cool kid on campus—Check, double check, discount double check.
• Buy books for class—kind of check.  I have books for one class so far so I’m stacking that up as a full check.
• Moving—working on it.  My friend who’s also moving out that-a-ways and I have talked about U-Hauls and stuff… and yes, we've talks about renting a U-Haul.
• Putting loans in forbearance—to do this, I’ll have to actually talk to Sallie Mae, which might be the most putrid and entirely horrible endeavor that one can ever be subjected to in the world, ever.  I hate even having to look at my loans, let alone paying them or speaking to the loany-type people.  I’d prefer to believe that my loans just don’t exist, so acknowledge them by talking about them—it’s unpleasant.   

Stop taking all my money all the time!

• Buy a bunch of three-ring notebooks, pencils, and new school clothes--uh, my mom usually does that, so just like when we go out for lunch, I'm just going to leave that check to her.  I think it's a pretty safe assumption.  
• Enrolling in my new health insurance—working on it; because I have a pre-existing condition I need to make sure my health insurance is continuous so that means getting a letter of continuous coverage, submitting it, getting medical records transferred over, it’s a whole thing, but not as bad as talking to She Who Must Not be Named (Allie-sa, Ae-ma). 
• Getting good at reading an' writing agains--... working on it. 

The other 17-some things, I'm going to chalk those up as tasks for Future-Me, possibly July-August Future-Me, possibly.  Until then I guess it's on onward trudge to summon the will to actually accomplish something this summer--ah, it's good to have First World problems, yes, yes. 

By the way... I'm quitting

Last Friday after engaging my boss in some jonty back-and-forth about how he might escape his impending jury duty—I suggested body paint—I asked if he had another minute and closed his office door behind me.  He was instantly apprehensive, I suspect fearing that I might be revealing some kind of tawdry office scandal--if only--but I assured him that it wasn't anything bad—for me at least.

Now there's a lady who knows how to do it. 

I told him straight out that I was leaving for grad school and he immediately congratulated me for escaping from the department.  Yay and yikes? 

As it turns out, as irritating-to-wacky that I thought the faculty were based on my limited collegiate experience, my seasoned chair informed me that the department was more along the infuriating-to-psychotic lines.  He was incredibly understanding and empathetic to my plan to further my education and, you know, make something of myself and junk.  He definitely asserted a “you have to do what’s best for you” mentality underscored by a “I knew this was only a steppingstone for you” understanding, and touched off with a “you beat me to the door” aside, quickly followed up by a, “but seriously, you did”. 

He has allowed me to set my end date and has even agreed to keep it under the radar from our nosy-neighbor faculty until later.  Really good stuff.  So why has it been over a week since I’ve posted this news?  Well funny thing about telling your boss that you’re planning to quit; he expects you do crap before you leave.  Tying up loose ends that I've been content to let dangle, writing-up tutorials for my replacement, he pretty much wants to squeeze the last remaining ounces of productivity from me.  I completely understand it  and am compliant with it, but the truth is that well’s been dry for a while now.

So now I’m trying to eek out the will to complete this employment bucket list, doing my best to fight the urge to throw it all together the day before I leave.  I still have two months—pfff!  What’s the rush.  Yeah…

But on the lighter side of the toast, it feels really good to let him know and have it all out in the open—excluding open to the faculty, student workers, or anyone else at work, of course.  Ah, sweet serenity... 

Locked and Loaded

I am beginning to feel pretty shady.  Yes, as I sit at work typing on my office computer still without having told anyone (who I need to) about my impending August departure, the shadiness is strong with me.

Summer at a university is, for the most part, head-hammeringly slow.  There are a few projects to work on—one of those for me being organizing my files and crap to hand off in my transition—but for the most part it’s me, our administrative assistant, and the department chair twiddling our thumbs.  And every time the fall semester comes up and I preface my response with “my position should be responsible for this”, or “this position can definitely do that”, I feel disgenuous.  I feel pretty shady.


I need to drop the grad school bomb.


But I’ve never quit a job before—not one that I didn't have to leave because I was going home for the summer or to school in the fall anyway—and I’m not sure how to do it or how it might go.  Here are a few hypothetical possibilities;

Scenario A:

Me:  Hey, boss.

Boss:  Hey, employee.

(I gently close the door behind me)

Me: Can we talk?

Boss:  Sure, my door is always open, except for now since you just closed it.

(We share a laugh)

Me:  Great, great.  Well, I’ve been meaning to tell you for a while now and wasn’t sure when might be the best time—

Boss:  --Go ahead, employee.

Me: Okay, well boss, I wanted to let you know that I’ve been accepted into grad school and I’m leaving in August.  It’s nothing against you or the department, it’s just an amazing opportunity that I’ve been working toward for a long time.  I’ve been organizing my files and duties so they can be easily transitioned on to my replacement.  I’ll be here ready to do whatever needs to be done until August.  Most importantly, I want to make sure that I didn’t leave you and the department in the lurch.  I hope you can understand.

(Boss calmly stands up and throws his chair though my face.)

You should see what he does when I miss a lay-up

Scenario B:

Me:  Boss, I got something I need to tell you!

Boss:  Whoa employee, what’s going on?  This isn’t like you!

Me:  Cram it Dr. Who Gives a Crap!  I’m talking now!

(Boss, a.k.a. Dr. Who Gives a Crap, cowers behind his fine oak desk)

Me:  Yeah, I’m talking now.  Listen, I’m out of this trash can!  You’re all like Losertown and I’m all Scramsville, baby! 

Boss:  Oh my stars!

Me:  that’s right, I’m tired of taking this crap, and even if I wasn’t going to grad school, which I am ‘cause I’m smart—surprised much?—I’d still be getting the hell out of here!  Peace out Girl Scout!

(Boss calmly stands up and throws a chair through my face)

The other scenarios are really just alterations of these first two with different things being thrown through my face—a stapler, an autographed textbook, a harpoon, etc.  I guess in reality, my approach should be akin to Scenario A and my boss’ response will probably be more reasonable than throwing a harpoon through my face.

Scenario G

Where as my original fear was being terminated prematurely, I’m now confident that won’t happen.  I’m more concerned with the added pressure of getting things in order to transition out of my position, thus, destroying my Summer of Slothfulness—wow, I guess it’s me who’s all like Loserville right now.

In any event, the bomb drops Monday, so says Scramsville. 

Something Funny about Saturday Night Live

I’m probably one of the few remaining people who actually try to watch Saturday Night Live, live if possible.  I’m a stubborn fan.  In college while applying for an internship with SNL I wrote in my cover letter that, “I was the cool kid in elementary school whose parents let him stay up and watch SNL, and in high school I was lame kid who stayed home on Saturday nights to watch it”.  Today, I guess I’m a bit of both.

In any event this past Saturday was Kristin Wiig’s last show.  There was a nice farewell to Wiig at the end of the show with Mick Jagger, Arcade Fire, and the cast dancing to She’s a Rainbow.  It was very touching, but as when anyone leaves SNL I found myself wondering, why?

Marry me?  

Despite its ups and downs Saturday Night Live seems like the most fun thing of which anyone could hope to be a part.  With tears in her eyes, Wiig was clearly s ad to leave the show that made her a star as well as all of her cast mates who will stay behind to haphazardly attempt to fill the massive void left by the departures of such sketch icons as Penelope, the Target Lady, the third sister on the Lawrence Welke Show.  Clearly, good times were had so why leave? 

Because of the SNL precedent of peacing out after a cast member has achieved some modicum of fame.  Pretty much every successful cast member has done this, but whether Wiig will follow in the footsteps of Fey, Farrell, Sandler, and Murray or those of Forte, Oteri, Mohr, and Piscopo remains to be seen. It seems like unless you’re Tim Meadows, you have to move on. 

Tim Meadows was an average cast member who debuted on Saturday Night Live in 1991 and stuck around until 2000 when I think Lorne Michaels paid him $35 to leave.  You probably don’t remember him from anything aside from being the black guy on the show who wasn’t Chris Rock or Tracey Morgan.  For a long time I thought Meadows was a genius.  He refused to allow some obligatory social cue dictate his life.  He had a good thing going on SNL and he wasn’t going to leave.  But then everyone else did.

Whether by abdication, firing, or being Chris Farely (RIP), the cast around Meadows changed and continued to change until he probably felt like a less funny version of Matthew McConaughey in Dazed and Confused.  As steadfast as he remained, the SNL Meadows loved still changed around him and by the time he realized it all he had was some nasty dreads and the unread script for The Lady’s Man 2: Ladying in DC, Slick Willy Returns.

How has this movie not been made yet?

Whether Wiig wanted to or not, she had to leave because her recent success has given her the best chance to achieve some personal goal.  If one of her goals had been to have stayed on SNL forever, it wouldn’t have been possible.  Old cast mates would have left, new ones would have arrived and it wouldn't have been the same SNL she had come to love.

I still haven’t signed anything for Mizzou (not that I’ve been asked) nor have I told my boss that I’m leaving, which has allowed me to harbor the possibility of staying in St. Louis if only as the faintest of options.  I know I won’t, but I often think about if I would and what I’m giving up here for an uncertain future there.  But like most things in life, this can be equated to Saturday Night Live.  

As much as I love my life and the people in it right now, it won’t stay the same forever.  That’s the simple and sometimes sad axiom of life.  People get married, they leave town to take dream jobs, they leave town to take not dream jobs, lives unabatedly change and as much as I might want to trap these moments inside of some diabolical snowglobe, I can’t.  The word spins madly on and we all must be willing and prepared, if not excited, to change with it.  All I can do is relentlessly pursue my dreams and hope that somewhere along the way there’s a place where things aren’t in such inevitable flux and that maybe I can get there some day.

Leave it to the lady who routinely vomits while dancing on camera to give me some perspective—or at least provide me with an analogy to continually restate my perspective…