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things are looking up Monday August 30
as they always do after they've been down, things are looking up. i've received calls from old clients as well as a couple new ones -- it looks like some more people want to work with me. after recent lessons learned, though, we need contracts and deposits.
surely, the downside is that i have a lot of work to do in a short amount of time, but after this past week, i think i can afford to work -- i played an awful lot.
did anyone ever see that episode of the twilight zone where the guy had contracts, and then, like, they cut out his tongue, and put it in a jar, and then it just sat there and grew baby tongues...?
it had been way, way too long since i'd seen wayne's world. last week put it fresh in my head.
update Sunday August 29
life has been busy -- i've been spending every weekend in roscoe either seeing family or seeing friends -- and i've been hanging curtains and cleaning up the room.
not to mention hanging out with people. some for longer amounts of time than others. a full update to come when i get back to school tonight.
everything will change Thursday August 19
while the postal service's album "give up" is a top record of 2003, i was a late adopter. i didn't get on board until january 2004, and sitting here in mid-late august, i'd have to say that it's going to be, without a doubt, right next to jets to brazil, one of the influential albums of the year for my personal life.
the best part of music, for me, is that you can take from it what you want to take; you can interpret your own meaning from the lyrics, and in the end, it just helps you get by. the beats, the words. it's so hard to share, though, for that very reason: the circumstances under which everyone hears the same song are different, and thus while we can understand another song's value when someone explains it to us, we cannot easily duplicate the feeling they experience upon hearing it.
notable exceptions: when nate, todd, and i rocked out to stroke nine after watching jay and silent bob strike back in 2001, guster with heather in bloomington in 2002, and some frank sinatra. life is beautiful when listening to frank.
planet changeover
the planet is no longer, uh, the planet -- as of tomorrow. it's just going to be wpgu-fm. there's a small format change to go with the name change. and a small website to redesign.
in the days before the flip, though, we've been playing some weird stuff. i heard the duck tales theme song on the way to work today -- and last night on the way home i got mahna mahna. and now i cannot get it out of my head.
mahna mahna -- doo dooo de doo doo
airplane stream of consciousness Tuesday August 17
on my way back from new york, i had to fly a commuter prop plane from saint louis to champaign. i thought i was going to suffer, but contrary to my expectations, it was a very nice, smooth flight.
to help combat fear while flying, though, i scribbled a stream-of-consciousness about my time in new york city. i have republished it here for the record (and so i can throw out the paper it's written on; i don't like paper clutter in my bag):
lessons learned in new york citybut not to look on the past too long, how are we going to make a change to better ourselves for the future?
sister-in-law: it is what it is, i love my brother, but i cannot see eye-to-eye with his wife. he needs to do what he needs to do to be happy, and if she makes him happy, i'll live with it. if she doesn't make him happy, i'll live with it. it is his own responsibility to figure out what is best for him. so for me, this means i won't be going back to new york city for any sister-in-law-related business, uhm, as long as the situation persists. however, i have almost a premonition about my brother and his life, and i feel that by going to the city i expedited the outcome of whatever was naturally occurring anyway.
money: money is trivial, so i can't really honestly tell you that $1500 (most of which i would have made in c-u anyway) was worth it. but my young self "got out there". i made all the arrangements and did it. hardships included, i truly am capable of self-sustenance.
differences: new york is diversity on acid; champaign-urbana is a segregated diverse population. yet champaign made roscoe look bad, and now new york city makes champaign look bad. but my heart has a home; my home is rooted with my family and my past, and if i want to take this time to plan what to do next, there is no better backdrop than my shady urbana neighborhood.
future: from here i will make an effort to work on myself; i feel life has thrown some circumstances my way to help me along to being a better person. some say "you are who you are", faults and all, but if that's so, then "i am" a person who is not content with self-stasis. thus, developmental change is my desired position, and i will seek out circumstances that provoke such developments.
it's not where you are, it's who you are.
seaport Monday August 16
so i'm pretty much done with the seaport america sushi wholesale website. and i'm posting about it here because google roams my site, and therefore by virtue of this post, that site will get higher placement when people search for "new york sushi".
finding a place to live
finding a place to live has been a little more difficult than i had imagined. what this community is lacking is a cohesive, craigslist-style way of easily finding what's available and what's not, where. unfortunately, i don't see an initiative from any of the real estate companies to produce such a website: certain landlords bank on their popularity and name despite their insufficiencies as landlords. thus, if students or other apartment seekers could level the market playing field, they'd be in trouble.
the other problem is where i'm coming from. we all know that my apartment last year was, without a doubt, absolutely beautiful. i wouldn't have moved from there if i had had a choice... so now, wherever i go, it has to be at least half as nice and/or convenient as that place before i'll even consider it.
i'm spoiled, and it's keeping me living on the foellinger, wpgu, and leslie couches for a couple more days.
illinois Thursday August 12
back in champaign. out of my apartment. homeless. mm, that was a good sub. the thing about not having an apartment is that you get to eat out every night without feeling guilty.
score.
auuugh Tuesday August 10
tuesday august 10th
12:30am: mark closes the store -- which he wasn't even supposed to do -- anxious to get out with todd and plinko in manhattan.
12:33am: a manhattan-bound E train departs parsons center/archer boulevard.
12:35am: mark enters the vestibule of commerce bank in forest hills and withdraws sixty dollars in united states currency.
12:42am: the E arrives at forest hills station. mark enters; he's sweaty because he's in his suit jacket and the station has no ventilation.
12:43am: mark realizes he should have waited for the F train, as the E is not express at night. on second thought, the train's A/C makes up for it.
12:52am: mark sees the F train passing on the express track just before the E gets to roosevelt, a transfer station.
12:53am: mark excitedly sees the F train parked, waiting for the E arrival, at roosevelt. he dashes out of the train and onto the F.
12:55:03am: mark pats himself down and realizes that his wallet is not present.
12:55:04am: AUUUUUGGGGHHHHHHHHHH#$kdaf;kdsaaaaa-0-------
1:02am: F train arrives at queensbridge, mark makes his way to station attendant.
1:03am: station attendant calls in backup help, makes phone calls.
1:10am: while attendant is still placing calls, backup and i are joking around, and he's reassuring me that, albeit minus the cash, they find most wallets. people in new york aren't that bad, he says. not like "them papers say" all the time.
1:28am: mark catches an F train back to roosevelt and goes home.
2:00-2:37am: mark cancels all credit and debit cards. grrr.
2:38am: mark constructs timeline of one of the most frustrating evenings he's had in awhile.
why you all up in my kool-aid Sunday August 8
last night i was bartending for nigel, another stylist katrina, and alex. katrina, a 30-year-old black mother of three, told me at one point that i am about the whitest boy she's met in a long time.
i believe the exact circumstance was my bungling of the not-so-white phrase: "why you all up in my kool-aid when you don't know the flav(a)/(or)"
and i got realllllly upset.
unfortunately, i was behind the bar, and getting upset at customers is never a good tactic. nigel was laughing and so was alex, so i figured there was one of three things happening: (a) i was totally out of line to be upset by the comment, and thus i should bear it, put a smile on, and go back to work; (b) what she was saying was totally inappropriate, and i should bear it, put a smile on, and go back to work; or (c) some combination of both. however, both have the same reaction on my part, so that's what i tried my best to do.
when i thought about it ten minutes later, i came to the conclusion that it was indeed (c). where i come from, being a white boy isn't a good thing, and it certainly isn't a compliment (as she had assured me it wasn't a bad thing). being a "white boy" to me, a product of northern illinois, is being not only caucasian but being culturally ignorant, insensitive, and, for lack of better terminology, hick-ish.
and as soon as i thought of it that way, i saw why i was so upset. i just described the "good ol' boy" stereotype that is, stereotypically, still rather a racist, ignorant individual. inside my head, the neurons fired in such a way that when she said "white boy", all of these connections fired that conjured up images of racism and seperatism. thus, without even understanding why i was instantly angry, i was.
of course, i realize that katrina wasn't calling me a racist good ol' boy. she was simply defining me by my external characteristics of manner and speech. for the sake of a joke, that's fine; "i am white" in the sense that i can't dance. i can't play basketball. i can't jump.
in many ways, of course, the thinking of country bumpkins is decidely backwards when compared to the thinking of a new york city lifelong resident. what bothered me after the initial anger, though, was that katrina and nigel were unable to understand why i was upset at all: and they didn't care. from the city perspective, where they grew up around different people all the time, and racism was less of a concern (at least, overt racism), they didn't understand why i was upset.
what kept me upset, though, was not that -- it was that they made no effort to understand where i was coming from. they didn't want to listen to the explanation that i just gave here, and they didn't want to reach a mutual understanding that makes everyone better able to understand each other in the future.
they just wanted to laugh, have a good time, and make a joke. at my expense. certainly, i would have never brought this point to their attention: it would have made me feel childish; they certainly would have turned that same statement back on me.
people are terrible to one another, and the sad part is that they are rarely aware of it. it goes with the turf of being human. who have i wronged recently, i wonder?
sensitivity versus being gay Thursday August 5
in general, i'm a rather sensitive individual. sometimes i come across cold; it's usually because i have a logical part to my brain, too. yesterday i learned that my friend's friend's baby died stillborn in the womb. and my friend, who obviously closer to the would-be mother than i, was crying. while i was sitting next to him.
and the baby's dead. nothing's going to bring the baby back. so. we could either dwell, or move on. if we dwell, we're going to bring ourselves down without changing the circumstances whatsoever. so my plan of action in these situations, or rather, what occurs to me most naturally, is to say the appropriate expression of condolence and hope that it was sufficient. rather, hope that the other person can't detect that i'm saying it because i know that's what people say. i know well that the words are meaningless in spite of the situation, and that we say them to assure the other person that we want to help them through their hardship.
this isn't where this post was intending to go. look at the title. i meant to talk about being sensitive, and instead, i talk about being cold. well, now that i have the stillborn bit out of the way, let me explain.
every gay man who ever meets me thinks i am gay.
or, as i was told last night, "i give off a gay vibe". "maybe it's because i'm sensitive and complex". but anyone who knows me well knows how straight i am. i'm not even curious. there's not much doubt being cast on my sexuality, at least by myself. certainly, i have certain qualities that our society has dubbed "effeminiate".
so let's review the scorecard for this summer:
gay guys who think/wish mark was gay: 3
straight girls who want a piece of the m-d pie: 0*
this is what i wanted, though? some time off, time to myself? yes?
* we are choosing not to include high-school aged minors who come into the store once a week or so and stare at my behind while i walk about. sylwia confirmed my suspicion last night, as they were shamelessly staring. even worse than a man staring at a pair of D-cup breasts. and then they left a dollar tip. i understand that no one's got money when they're young, but c'mon people, this is how the service industry works. the more you tip, the more we pay attention to you.
selling websites Monday August 2
juan set me up with the sushi people -- they needed a website. and i do website. match made in heaven. then she suggested that we do this more long term, namely, that she introduces me to everyone and i do all the work. i said, "hrmm, how much you want?"
to which she replied, "half."
a lot of people want to do business with me these days. juan, a guy david, fourman from the planet. what i've learned is that i have a skill, and all these people have ideas. and they want to leech my skills off of me. i'm not proclaiming myself a genius at reading people, but i can tell within a minute of talking to someone whether or not they've got my best interest at heart. most of these people see me as a tool or an asset, which instantly makes me obstinate. i'm not working with anyone who sees me for what i can do, not what i can think of.
my readership Sunday August 1
my readership increased by one today: juan told me she read my site. she saw it in the "history" drop-down box from the times i've checked at her apartment. she said that it was interesting in the sense that it was a side of me she wasn't aware of; at the same time, i don't think that it held her interest to the extent that she will continue to read it.
hence this post.
when i'm at the computer, i'm likely programming, reading, chatting, or e-mailing. all of these activities are not activities where i can carry on a conversation with other people in the room. i can't play the drums, i can't sing and play guitar at the same time, and for the most part, i can't play two hand piano. i am not a good multitasker in that sense. i shine when it comes to focusing in depth on one thing.
i can't get too upset, i used to do it to todd all the time: interrupt him at his machine to say something. now, it drives me nuts. if perchance juan does read this again, let this serve as a warning. she's good at being passive-agressive, so i'll play along by sitting here like nothing's wrong, all the while thinking about the nut job that's sitting at the other end of the bar.
recently, though, juan's been busy with her fashion business, and thus the store's been manager-less. and i abandoned the role a little when i saw that my efforts weren't helping michael per se.
call me selfish.
